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'New Moon' Co-Stars Grow Up and Rock Out
by Eugene Blackburn
March 5, 2009

"Twilight" stars Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning have legions of screaming tweenaged fans who will forever identify them as Bella and Jane. But in their latest effort, they leave the world of chaste longing and sparkly vampires far behind. In "The Runaways," they rock out.

The movie, based on the book "Neon Angel: The Cherie Currie Story," is both a rock 'n roll coming of age story and an unvarnished look at what the titular all-girl proto-punk band went through during their brief brush with fame. Fanning is Currie while Kristen Stewart plays Joan Jett. And as you can see from the trailer, they command the stage like naturals.

To prepare for her role, Dakota learned to sing -- that's actually her singing "Cherry Bomb" in the new trailer -- while Kristen Stewart learned guitar moves from Jett. Both actors reportedly had time to spend with the rock gods. Kristen recalled the time with reporters during Sundance.

"[It] was so nice," Stewart said, "because they were actually not just open to any actor who might be playing them. But we really liked each other. Like, instantly ... the four of us were pretty, you know ... there was just something really special and it was cool."

So what does Currie think of the movie? "The actors are amazing," she said during a post-screening Q&A session. "Every time I see it, I like it better."

The movie opens March 19.

Two Dads Take on a New 'Alice'
How fatherhood revitalized Johnny Depp and Tim Burton
By Mary Pols

In a recent interview, Johnny Depp mentioned he'd reread Lewis Carroll's original book and sequel, "Through the Looking Glass" not long before Tim Burton called to ask him about playing the Mad Hatter in Disney's new 3-D "Alice in Wonderland." Depp is such a devoted dad that it's easy to imagine that he'd been revisiting "Alice" for the benefit of his two kids, 10-year-old Lily-Rose and Jack, 7. Maybe he was even acting out some Mad Hatter bits for them while picnicking in their vineyards or elsewhere on the 30 acres that surround their idyllic French country house.

Video: Clips and Extras | Photos: 'Alice in Wonderland' Gallery

Depp and Burton have been collaborating on movies for a full 20 years, starting with their first modern fairy tale, 1990's "Edward Scissorhands." They always got the whole combo of childlike innocence and weirdness, but now they're both proud family men (Burton has two young children with actress Helena Bonham Carter, who plays the scariest Red Queen in history in the new "Alice"). The oddball and his muse now swap Wiggles DVDs.

In 2006, Depp said being a father "has given me real foundation, a real strong place to stand in life, in work, in everything." Parenthood has also clearly impacted his choices; how else do you explain the fact that he voiced a "SpongeBob" episode last year? Look what he's done artistically since becoming a father in 1999: reimagined the origins of Peter Pan in "Finding Neverland"; reminded the world that pirates are wicked cool; put a new face on Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka; and, now, turned Carroll's obstinate, prickly Mad Hatter into a lovable, surprisingly helpful madman. The role seems inspired by equal parts Harpo Marx, Carol Channing and Edward Scissorhands (wait until you see the Mad Hatter whip up a dress for Mia Wasikowska's Alice).

It's not that Depp and Burton, in their dad-doms, have gone squishy and gooey or put on their Mister Rogers sweaters. God no. Like Lewis Carroll, (or rather, Charles Dodgson) who wrote both his Alice books after meeting and becoming smitten with young Alice Liddell, they seem more inspired to challenge children. "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" might have been about sweets, but it wasn't exactly sweet. (And let's not forget their bloody "Sweeney Todd" that followed, or the fact that Depp still makes plenty of movies for adults, like "Public Enemies.") Their "Alice" features Alice as a young woman of 19, about to be married off to a thoroughly awful aristocrat named Hamish, who in his chinless non-beauty, looks a lot like more John Tenniel's original drawings of the Mad Hatter than Depp does with his wild eyes and flame-red wig and eyebrows. As imagined by screenwriter Linda Woolverton ("The Lion King") Wonderland is Alice's refuge from the perils of adulthood. It's also her old stomping ground; she's been dreaming of it all her life, but she's forgotten that she visited it twice as a child.

Depp told reporters in England that his son and daughter had both seen the movie early and loved it. Adored it even. "I send them out there in the front lines," Depp said, to judge how it might play with younger audiences. "They weren't freaked out by it whatsoever." Jack must be a tough 7-year-old. My child refused to attend a preview screening with me. He's just turning 6 and he knows his limits.

He's seen the ads. "I don't like the Queen," he told me. I feel confident he was not referring to Anne Hathaway's scrumptiously ethereal and ever so slightly ironically sweet White Queen, but rather Bonham-Carter. His instincts were right; Bonham-Carter is fantastically unsettling in the part and the movie is way too scary for him. The Red Queen's real-life son, Billie, who is also 6, was apparently very nervous about seeing the film. Bonham-Carter speculated that it might be a "disaster." And he knows his mother doesn't really look like that.

What Burton and Depp are doing, or seemingly aiming to do, is make new classics with their old sensibilities, which in turn came from past classics. They grew up loving horror movies and shows like "Dark Shadows" and "H.R. Pufnstuf." The latter aired in the '70s, when both men were young, and, although it didn't seem that way at the time, "H.R. Pufnstuf" was kind of like a hippie version of "Barney" but with actual plot. Burton told Entertainment Weekly he's been trying to get Billie to watch it with him, but his son is not coming around. "He will," Depp said sagely.

Or maybe not. Depp might be just being hopeful, in a very universal way, about how cherished things are passed from generation to generation. All parents aim to take their kids in the most memorable parts of their own childhoods and show them around. Show their offspring what was funny, what they wanted to read, what lives on (doesn't it seem important to show them your elementary school?) and what was scary to them as children. It's not just the impulse to share, but there's also a natural protective instinct involved. If you show your kids that you were scared of something and survived, maybe they'll have an easier time with thunder or reading aloud in second grade. What makes Depp and Burton different is that they both place a high premium on being spooked, it clearly gives value and substance to their lives to go to the edge and then come back. It makes sense that their artistic urges incorporate their own propensity for darkness.

I think theirs is a new "Alice" for the ages, but it's up to individual parents to make the call over how much of this kind of darkness their children can take at this particular point in their lives. The ideal demographic might be young girls. The female empowerment message is strong and quite direct. The Jabberwocky poem from "Through the Looking Glass," which featured a "he" slaying a winged creature called the Jabberwocky, has been turned on its head, gender-wise; the pronoun was inaccurate, according to the White Rabbit and friends. "Jabberwocky" was always supposed to be about Alice becoming a slayer (Buffy!). And her journey is meant to help her throw off the shackles of settling into marriage with a dull and needy man. Depp's Lily-Rose might be just the right age to appreciate this "Alice," along with tweens and teens.

It's certainly for adults with fond memories of the original "Alice." The poet and essayist Gilbert Chesterton, who was not quite a contemporary of Carroll's (he was born the year Carroll wrote "The Hunting of the Snark") famously said, "It is not children who ought to read the words of Lewis Carroll. They are far better employed making mud pies." I'm fine with my own kid skipping the movie for now. There's always DVD, down the line. For now, mud pies for him, and maybe another trip to the movies to see "Alice" for mom.

The One Place on Earth Not Destroyed in '2012'
by Jonathan Crow
November 3, 2009

When I interviewed director Roland Emmerich a few months ago about his upcoming disaster flick "2012," the first question I asked was, "Why do you like killing the world?" His response: "It makes for a good story."

Over the past fifteen years, Emmerich has crafted some great tales about global doom, featuring some spectacular scenes of destruction. He had aliens zap the White House in "Independence Day," he let a massive lizard flatten New York City in "Godzilla," and he sent killer tornadoes through downtown Los Angeles in "The Day After Tomorrow."

For "2012," Emmerich set his sites on destroying the some biggest landmarks around the world, from Rome to Rio. But there's one place that Emmerich wanted to demolish but didn't: the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure located in the center of Mecca. It's the focus of prayers and the site of the Hajj, the biggest, most important pilgrimage in Islam.

"Well, I wanted to do that, I have to admit," the filmmaker told scifiwire.com. "But my co-writer Harald [Kloser] said, 'I will not have a fatwa on my head because of a movie.' And he was right."

Traditionally, a fatwa has meant religious opinion by an Islamic scholar or imam. The term has gained currency in the West after Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death sentence in the form of a fatwa against British author Salman Rushdie for alleged blasphemies in his book "The Satanic Verses" in 1989. As a result, the Indian-born writer was forced into hiding for most of the '90s.

Emmerich has no qualms about wrecking other major landmarks, however. The massive dome of St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican rolls on top of a crowd of churchgoers. The huge Christ the Redeemer statue that looms over Rio de Janeiro disintegrates. And, of course, the White House gets crushed when a wave drops the aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy on top of it.

The director was also reportedly approached by people hoping to get their famous landmarks trashed, like Taiwan's Taipei 101, which is the tallest completed building in the world. There's no word yet if that structure will meet the same on-screen fate as the Vatican and the White House.

Royal thumbs up: The queen likes 'The King's Speech'
Feb. 4, 2011, 6:34 PM EST
By Steve Pond

All along the campaign trail for "The King's Speech," director Tom Hooper, screenwriter David Seidler and star Colin Firth have been asked whether the British royal family has seen the movie, and, if so, what they think of it.

The standard response: We don't know -- and even if they do see it, we probably won't hear about it.

Now, according to the Sun, it turns out that Queen Elizabeth II has in fact seen, and liked, the film that deals with her father's struggle against a speech impediment.

And we're all going to hear about it, because the Weinstein Company has sent out a press release drawing attention to the Sun story.

According to Sun editor Duncan Larcombe, the queen -- played in the film by young actress Freya Wilson -- "enjoyed a private viewing" of the film at Sandringham House, the royal family's country house in Norfolk.

The verdict, from someone identified only as "a source": "he found it moving and enjoyable. She was clearly amused by some of the lighter moments."

More on TheWrap: 'King's Speech' is now Oscar frontrunner -- a risky place to be

And she was said to be particularly impressed by Colin Firth's portrayal of her father.

According to the Weinstein Company release, the film also has "been seen and admired" by British Prime Minister David Cameron, Prince Andrew, Lord and Lady William Astor, Lord Edward Spencer-Churchill and Edwina Sandys, the granddaughter of Winston Churchill.

Take that, all you film critics who preferred the other movie.

I love BATMAN! But from the Avengers.......Thor and Loki. I was super into Norse mythology when I was younger so.....I lurves them!