Movie Nation

Young love, so sorely tested by vampirism and zombification in “Twilight” and “Warm Bodies,” finds the road to romance sunnier in “Beautiful Creatures,” in which two teens pair up despite the fact that one of them is a witch in training.

The one-liners drawl from the lips of the South Carolina characters like Spanish moss dripping from the oaks in a script so witty it attracted Oscar winners Emma Thompson and Jeremy Irons and Oscar nominee Viola Davis in supporting roles.

Alden Ehrenreich gives a breakout performance as Ethan, a dreamer and square peg in the round hole of rural Gatlin, S.C. A high school junior who longs for the day he can escape his provincial life, he’s an incessant reader – Henry Miller, Ayn Rand, William Burroughs – and that manifests itself in his narration and his take on his town.

“They keep reenacting the Civil War like it’s gonna come out different.”

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Ryan Gosling’s a smart, studied actor who has made it a point of latching on to good filmmakers — indie ones especially — in his quick rise to the top.

It was natural that he’d follow George Clooney into the directing ranks. But it’s a little surprising that he’s doing it now.

“How to Catch a Monster” is the project, and he wrote it, too. Variety reports that he’s landed Matt Smith of Brit TV’s “Dr. Who” as his male lead.

He already had Eva Mendes and Christina Hendricks. Not too shabby.

Josh Duhamel grew up in Minot, North Dakota. And since I did some hard, cold time in Grand Forks, North Dakota, back in the day, we bonded over that shared snowy experience before we started our chat about “Safe Haven.”

“I loved growing up there,” he said of the Air Force and Oil Boom town whose motto is “Why not Minot?” “But the last winter I spent there, it got down to 40-60 below, windchill of 100 below. And I’d had enough. That spring, I was gone.”

He dropped out of Minot State College, followed a girlfriend to California, got into modeling and acting. Next thing you know, he’s making “Transformers” movies and married to Fergie.

His scariest moments in “Safe Haven”? Not the dancing scene with pro-dancer, “Dancing with the Stars” star turned actress Julianne Hough. “Starting an outboard, and running that boat across Southport harbor in a shot we had to get right at sunset. Man, yanking that rope, which I’d never done before, hitting your marks? With a boat? That’s pressure.”

Here’s the interview.

There’s a tempting change of life/change of pace subtext in the books and the movies made from the books of Nicholas Sparks. Things move slower, take on a gentler tempo. And that can be appealing, even to a Hollywood star married to a pop star.

“You know, I think about that, from time to time,” says Josh Duhamel, star of “Transformers” movies and a string of romantic comedies, husband to Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas. “What would it be like, to just chuck everything for a while? I can’t do that in my career right now. I’ve got be out here looking, ready to work. But I’ve got a place out in Minnesota that’s so far removed from everything – literally ‘the middle of the woods.’ You can’t see or hear a hint of anybody else – for miles.”

Duhamel, 40, got a taste of living on Sparks time when he made “Safe Haven,” a romantic drama set in the lovely, Mayberry-quiet hamlet of Southport, N.C. He plays a widowed convenience store owner, father of two, who takes a shine to the new waitress in town (Julianne Hough), who happens to be a woman on the run.

“It’s tranquil, a peaceful and beautiful little town,” he says. “Great little marina that they built my general store on, the little seafood joints along the shore. Old Colonial houses, big old trees, all that made for something that felt authentic, a great backdrop for the story.

“I had two weeks before we started shooting to just wander around and soak the place up. By the time we left there, we felt like locals.”

And feeling like small-town locals gave the Minot, North Dakota native time to take stock.

“I am a boy from North Dakota and I need my space and my solitude, every now and then. It’s a state of mind, because you can’t get off into the woods somewhere to find that every time you need it. Not in my business.”

Movies made from Sparks novels aren’t always hits – but often they are. And the things they can do for a leading man – Ryan Gosling in “The Notebook,” Channing Tatum in “Dear John,” Zac Efron in “The Lucky One” – are obvious. Duhamel’s made a lot of movies, and if he hasn’t turned into a major star yet, it’s not for lack of trying. Paired up with Kristen Bell (“When in Rome”), Ginnifer Goodwin (“Ramona & Beezus”) or Catherine Heigl (“Life as We Know It”), he often earns better reviews than the movie he’s co-starring in. “Duhamel has a mischievous charm that tugs nicely even when he’s a bit of a jerk,” Denver Post critic Lisa Kennedy wrote of his turn in “Life as We Know It.” Philadelphia Inquirer critic Carrie Rickey once compared him to Shaggy in “Scooby Doo.” He’s that Hollywood rarity – a masculine leading man who is light on his feet and reluctant to take himself too seriously. That creates chemistry, no matter what the film or the leading lady.

“I’m not trying to put anything over on the women they pair me up with. Heigl, Bell, I’ve always approached this business trying to be me. If I’m putting on this fake guise, women detect that and react to it.  The closer we play to who we really are behind the scenes the less we have to put on when the camera is rolling. I try never to act like some smooth this or phony that. And if they’re acting the same way, it clicks.”

And, he adds with a laugh, when you’re about to do a kissing scene, “Don’t forget your Altoids.”

Duhamel has an indie survivalist drama “Scenic Route” about to premiere at the South by Southwest Film Festival. He’s hosting the Kids’ Choice Awards on Nickelodeon March 23. And he’s got high hopes for “Safe Haven,” a Valentine’s Day release that “feels natural, without a rush to the romance, without these big, force-fed romantic overtures. I’ve done a lot of movies like this, and you never want things to feel forced. When two people get together, in real life, they’ve earned it. You want the audience to feel that if Julianne and I get together in this one, that we’ve earned it.”

(Roger Moore’s review of “Safe Haven” is here).

Melissa McCarthy is BOX OFFICE now, officially. She pulled in $36.5 million in opening weekend ticket sales for “Identity Thief.” It’s not like Jason Bateman is that kind of draw. The lady is bankable, and Fox’s decision to push her Sandra Bullock buddy picture, “The Heat,” to Summer? Looking very smart right now.

“Silver Linings Playbook” is holding audience, week in and week out. “Zero Dark Thirty” isn’t doing badly either.

Among the NON Oscar contenders, “Mama” and “Warm Bodies” are sticking around, “Hansel & Gretel” may hit $50. Eventually.

“Top Gun,”pushed into theaters in 3D and IMAX (or Mini Max), did not crack the Top Ten.

Not necessarily an Oscar indicator, but the BRITISH Oscars, the BAFTAS, honored Emmanuelle Riva of “Amour” for best actress.

Otherwise, it was Affleck best director, “Argo” best picture, Day Lewis best actor, Hanne Hathaway best supporting actress.

Christoph Waltz won best supporting actor for “Django.” Figure that one and Riva won’t be replicated by the Oscars.

The quixotic career of Peter Bogdanovich, post “Paper Moon,” has been the subject of more head-shaking and tsk tsking than any filmmaker since his pal Orson Welles hit hard times and couldn’t get a movie made.

A movie here and there, some acting jobs. I rather liked “The Cat’s Meow” a few years back, but that didn’t lead to any comeback.

Now he’s got one that Jennifer Aniston has agreed to star in. She’s taken plenty of chances over the past decade, in between “Marley & Me” safe bets.  “She’s Funny That Way” has Owen Wilson and Jason Schwarztman already on board, so this is no “The Good Girl” or “Friends With Money.” A safer bet than most.

It’s about “a married Broadway director (Wilson) who falls for a prostitute-turned-actress and works to help her advance her career.” Aniston will play a therapist. Not the hooker.

The weekend’s cinematic tempest in a teapot went something like this.

Veteran New York critic and professional snarler Rex Reed wrote this review of “Identity Thief,” in which he took a few choice shots at star Melissa McCarthy’s style of comedy, and the fact that she’s trading on her own weight as physical sight gag/gross gag in her films.

No arguing with that. She did it in “Bridesmaids,” and she trades on it for a roly poly roll in the hay in “Identity Thief,” joking about her inability to run away from Jason Bateman — wheezing “What are you, a (bleeping) Kenyan?” after 40 yards or so.

But Reed called her “tractor sized,” which by any measure, crosses the line. A) She isn’t and B) it’s mean and C) nothing gets people more worked up than blasting somebody’s weight.

McCarthy hasn’t weighed in on it, but the director of her NEXT film, “The Heat,” Paul Feig did, tweeting a nasty “f-u” re: Reed.

Feig did “Bridesmaids,” too. Was she playing the jolly/profane fat woman in that one? You tell me. Be honest. Feig also did “Freaks and Geeks” with Judd Apatow, and coincidentally, Apatow used McCarthy in “This is 40,” where her weight isn’t used as an object of fun, merely as a convenient way to make her character, a bully’s mom, easy to hate. She has no control of herself, one is invited to think. How’s she going to control her kid?

But I digress.

That Feig tweet got Mike Fleming, who is doing a lot of ranting over at Deadline.com these days (anything for the traffic, right?) to jump to MM’s defense and into Reed’s business.

And that got this guy into the fray. Tactlessly.

And then the whole thing was on ABC News last night. Watch the video for the cliched version of who rallies to the heavy girl’s defense. John Waters apparently wasn’t available.

And so on.

Are we at some “teachable moment” about teasing, bullying the overweight, America’s obesity epidemic, the American diet, Hollywood role models and the idea that we’ve become so critical of Mass Media “think thin” brainwashing that we’ve gone too far the other way, “accepting” the fact that this is how we are now — needing bigger airline and theater seats, needing little electric carts to cover ground in Walmart, refusing to do anything about our diet/exercise/appetites but just taking this “Mike & Molly”  tonnage on as “The New Normal”?

McCarthy, her fans will point out, refers to herself as “healthy.” So what? I interviewed John Candy and Chris Farley. And Roseanne and Tom Arnold. You think they said they had doctors warning them about coronary heart disease, diabetes, etc? Nobody, much less a movie star, tells the truth about that.

You don’t talk about ANYbody’s weight without them and those who identify with them for some reason or other going off on you. Mention an alarming spike in Kevin Smith’s girth and he and his minions will try to tear you a new one. Then, six months later, when he breaks a friend’s toilet, HE starts talking about it.

But here’s your “man in the mirror” moment. “Identity Thief” is this weekend’s surprise blockbuster – $36 million.  Reviews didn’t help it, even though most critics avoided Rex Reed’s make-fun-of-appearances trap. It’s maudlin and kind of all over the place. Did people go to see Jason Bateman’s slow burn, to hear McCarthy’s shock-value swearing, or did they go to laugh “at” her and her weighty predicaments, to “laugh at the fat girl?”

The film’s last third, a serious John Candy/Chris Farley/Roseanne style downer where you see the unhappy person beneath her thieving and yes, her weight, suggests that she’s playing up the pull of gravity gag, and willing to play the pity card, too.

John Goodman and Faison Love are big guys who don’t make their weight the object of their comedy and never seem to let us laugh AT them. Rebel Wilson is the same way. McCarthy, any objective viewing will tell you, isn’t in the same boat. Wilson never lets on that she’s living anything less than a full, fun life. Even in “Bachelorette.” McCarthy often does. She’s willing to let screenwriters and directors (Mr. Feig) play the “fat card” for laughs at her expense.

The way Lagerfeld ripped Adele (uncalled for) and people suddenly found Jonah Hill “not as funny” after he lost weight suggests this is a subject that’s justifiably uncomfortable. It hits close to home on a LOT of levels. We don’t want to think we’re laughing at the obese, but the box office take tells us otherwise.

Carl “Devil in a Blue Dress” Franklin’s film is based on a Rudolph Anaya’s groundbreaking Chicano autobiographical novel.

“Bless Me, Ultima” was shot in New Mexico, is set during World War II and stars Miriam Colon as the title character, “protector” of a young boy menaced by both the times and the supernatural.

The cast is peopled with lesser known character actors, so this is very much an unknown quantity, at least to me. Fingers crossed, as always.

The best estimates, the BEST, put “Identity Thief” as a robust $23-25 million opening weekend.

Melissa McCarthy isn’t a big star yet, has no track record for opening comedies. Jason Bateman has never been big box office on his own terms.

But credit marketing or pent-up comic demand or whatever, “Identity Thief” exploded Friday –– bigger than “Bridesmaids” — and could clear $30 million this weekend, if the Northeastern blizzard and the word of mouth don’t dampen enthusiasm for it.

Marketing? This thing was ad-blitzed to death. Universal knew it wasn’t going to earn stellar reviews, but it did not hide the film from critics. It merely slapped an embargo on it so that the bad word wouldn’t leak out until Thursday.  Unlike “Parker” and “Last Stand,” it wasn’t stamped “dog” before release because the studio was plainly scared of reviews.

“Side Effects,” which has Steven Soderbergh closing down this phase of his movie-making career, is already taking a bigger blizzard hit — my interpretation. A sophisticated thriller that should play well in the NY/Boston corridor, it’s only on pace to hit $8 million.

“Identity Thief” is low comedy and playing well everywhere.

“Warm Bodies” is still making cash, over $9.

“Top Gun” didn’t crack the top ten, in limited 3D IMAX re-release.

“Bullet to the Head” lost half its weak opening weekend audience, and “Hansel & Gretel” could sneak over $50 million by next weekend.  “Mama” is on pace to hit $70-75.