SXSW Review: ‘Drinking Buddies’

I’ve had drinking buddies in my drinking career but none like Olivia Wilde. In fact, if I had a drinking buddy as attractive, smart and cool as the character she plays in Joe Swanberg‘s new film, Drinking Buddies, I’d be slamming a few back with her right now.

In the film, Wilde plays Kate. She works for a craft brewery, has a decent enough boyfriend (Ron Livingston) and is best friends with her co-worker, Luke (Jake Johnson). Luke is dating Jill (Anna Kendrick), who is a total catch.

The things is…. Kate and Luke are perfect for each other. They have everything in common, finish each others sentences and just plain old love being around each other. Things is, neither of them realize this until both couples go away for a weekend getaway. Read more

Watch Anna Kendrick Perform the ‘Cup Song’ from ‘Pitch Perfect’ on Letterman

Last week, we told you about Anna Kendrick and how she auditioned for Pitch Perfect. She had found a video online of a girl performing a song with a cup, thought it was cool and she spent a day learning it. For no reason other than thinking it was fun.

When her audition for Pitch Perfect (which is great, by the way) came around, she decided to use the cup song.

Last week when she was on Late Show with David Letterman, Letterman surprised her with a cup and asked her to perform it for him and the audience. Check it out below! Read more

Anna Kendrick on Auditioning for ‘Pitch Perfect’

Anna Kendrick started out in the world of musical theater, so it made sense for the Oscar-nominated actress to return to her roots in Pitch Perfect.

“I wasn’t looking for this, and in fact I remember reading the script and the thing that made me nervous was the musical aspect,” Kendrick told Movieline.  “It was almost like I wish Kay Cannon could rewrite the script replacing the a cappella with a chess club because I was worried about it being corny.  But I fell in love with the script so much because it was so smart and funny and surprising.  I was so charmed by it, I was like, ‘’Okay—guess I’m singing in a movie!”

This isn’t the first time Kendrick has shown off her vocal chops onscreen.  The actress made her film debut singing in the cult favorite movie, Camp.  But she still had to audition for director Jason Moore.  Kendrick recalled, “I met Jason like two years ago about it and they did ask me to sing, so I sang that song with the cups [from the film] that I learned from a YouTube video, and they were like, ‘Oh my god, that’s going in the movie!’” Read more

Interview: Anna Kendrick talks ‘ParaNorman’: “This was so different and so freeing and, like, pure”

Comic-Con: One of the nice surprises about seeing ParaNorman is how much Anna Kendrick‘s voice work leads itself to a wonderful animated performance.

Kendrick stars as Courtney, the exasperated sister who sighs so hard sometimes, you can feel it from your theater seat. Courtney is Norman’s sister, who has a hard time believing that her little brother can see and talk to dead people. But, when the small town they live in is overrun with zombies and ghosts, she is the first to get behind Norman and his powers.

Kendrick, who was nominated for a Tony Award for the Broadway play High Society at 12 years old, talked to me at a press roundtable at Comic-Con about how nervous she was on her first venture into voice-acting and watching her voice come out of an animated character. Read more

Interview: ParaNorman’s Kodi Smit-McPhee on Perfecting His American Accent and Getting Animated

Comic-Con: Kodi Smit-McPhee is Norman, the young boy who can see and talk to dead people in the wonderfully entertaining stop-motion animated film, ParaNorman.

I got a chance to talk with Kodi at Comic-Con where he talked about how he gets into character, whether its film or animation, perfecting his American accent (he’s Australian) and seeing his voice in a stop-motion character.

What types of qualities were you interested in conveying through your voice for Norman?

Kodi Smit-McPhee: Right, it’s always been a kind of dream for me to do a character and do a character voice as well. And I actually hadn’t read the script while I was auditioning so I just auditioned these sides they gave me. I didn’t know how big it was gonna be, if it was something just little, sent it off, and then found out I got the job.

And when I read the script and had a bit more of the character in my head, I started working on traits and stuff. And really I found out he’s just like me, but I can’t see ghosts. Or hear them. Read more

Review: ‘ParaNorman’

Norman (Kodi Smit-McPhee) is a normal, young boy. He loves to sit on the couch and watch TV with his Grandmother (Elaine Stritch), chat with people as he walks down the street in his small town and play with all of the dogs and cats as he passes them by.

There’s only one problem. They’re all dead.

Ok, so he might not be your typical young boy.

But that’s ok, because when the town suddenly becomes overrun with ghosts, ghouls and zombies, Norman is the only one who can help. But from his disbelieving family and the school bullies, will Norman – ParaNorman – have enough confidence in himself to get rid of the horrors?

The film, from the stop-motion animation studio that gave us 2009’s Coraline, is entertaining and the visuals are outstanding. It’s got humor for young kids – not too young though, there is some creepy stuff going on in the film – and older and a lot of don’t-blink-or-you’ll miss-it moments that someone my age got a big kick out of. The film also has a solid (but not preachy) attitude about bullying and what it’s like to be different. Read more

Anna Kendrick on ‘ParaNorman’ and Improvising with Jake Gyllenhaal in ‘End of Watch’

Anna Kendrick admits to being an animation geek.  So it’s easy to see why the actress was so excited to get the part in the upcoming film, ParaNorman. 

In an interview with NBC, Kendrick said, “I genuinely love the art form.  And I think some of the best storytelling takes place in animation, because they have the luxury of the time to kind of workshop through it.  With film sometimes you just get what you got.  And you’ve got to edit it the best that you can.  And it seems like some of the best storytelling comes through that workshopping process of seeing how the storyboards are coming together and what it actually sounds like once you hear it out loud.  So I’m just happy to be a part of this.”

ParaNorman tells the story of a young boy who has to save his town from supernatural forces.  Kendrick plays the boy’s older sister.  “I’d always wanted to do an animated film, so I jumped at the opportunity,” she said.  “This is my first one.  I was really nervous because I’m not great at ADR [Automated Dialog Replacement or looping], so I wasn’t sure how this was going to be.  But, it was, actually really, really freeing.  In ADR, you’re watching your own movie and trying to say your line.  In this, I just felt like it was a really safe space, and it was okay to make really ugly faces and really ugly body gestures.  To use all those things as tools was really helpful.  To not be self-conscious about the way you look on camera helps the intention to be really pure.” Read more

Trailer: ‘End of Watch’ starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena & Anna Kendrick

End of Watch: Two young Los Angeles police officers, Taylor (Gyllenhaal) and Zavala (Pena) patrol the city’s meanest streets of south central Los Angeles. Giving the story a gripping, first-person immediacy, the action unfolds entirely through footage from the handheld HD cameras of the police officers, gang members, surveillance cameras, and citizens caught in the line of fire to create a riveting portrait of the city’s darkest, most violent corners, the cops who risk their lives there every day, and the price they and their families are forced to pay.

Writer/Director: David Ayer
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Michael Pena, Anna Kendrick, Natalie Martinez, America Ferrera

In Theaters: September 28th  Read more

Trailer #2: ‘What To Expect When You’re Expecting’

Trailer: ‘What to Expect When You’re Expecting’ starring Everyone But You (and Me)

What to Expect When You’re Expecting: Over the moon about starting a family, TV fitness guru Jules and dance show star Evan find that their high-octane celebrity lives don’t stand a chance against the surprise demands of pregnancy. Baby-crazy author and advocate Wendy gets a taste of her own militant mommy advice when pregnancy hormones ravage her body; while Wendy’s husband, Gary, struggles not to be outdone by his competitive alpha-Dad, who’s expecting twins with his much younger trophy wife, Skyler. Photographer Holly is prepared to travel the globe to adopt a child, but her husband Alex isn’t so sure, and tries to quiet his panic by attending a “dudes” support group, where new fathers get to tell it like it really is. And rival food truck chefs Rosie and Marco’s surprise hook-up results in an unexpected quandary: what to do when your first child comes before your first date?

Starring: Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Elizabeth Banks, Chace Crawford, Brooklyn Decker, Matthew Morrison, Anna Kendrick, Dennis Quaid, Chris Rock, Rodrigo Santoro, Ben Falcone, Joe Manganiello, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Rob Huebel

Directed by: Kirk Jones

In Theaters: May 11, 2012  Read more

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