Posts Tagged ‘Bryce Dallas Howard’

Short Take: The kind of intimate experience that doesn't come around all that often

Director: Jonathan Levine

Screenwriter: Will Reiser

Cast: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Seth Rogen, Anna Kendrick, Bryce Dallas Howard, Anjelica Huston, Philip Baker Hall

Length: 1h 39m

Synopsis: Adam (Gordon-Levitt) and his best mate Kyle (Rogen) are two late twenty-somethings just living their lives and trying to get by. Adam and his longtime girlfriend Rachael (Howard) are beginning to hit a rough patch in their relationship, but for Adam the real bad news comes soon after getting a pain in his back checked out by a doctor. He’s hit with the big “C” word that none of us are ever prepared for. The size of the growth and its proximity to his spine gives him about a 50/50 chance of survival, and as it turns out that even split comes to define his world over the months to come. Part of his treatment, aside from torturous chemo therapy, is to see a psychiatrist named Katherine (Kendrick), whom he unintentionally begins to grow close to. With such people around him, in addition to a rather worrisome mother (Huston), Adam tries to do what he can to deal with the confusing and unexpected circumstances. While doing so, he discovers a lot about himself, as well as the close relationships he thought he understood.

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Short Take: Though it bares no relation, it has a chance to be as memorable and cherished as "Fried Green Tomatoes"

Director: Tate Taylor

Screenwriter: Tate Taylor, Kathryn Stockett (novel)

Cast: Viola Davis, Emma Stone, Bryce Dallas Howard, Octavia Spencer, Jessica Chastain, Allison Janney, Sissy Spacek

Length: 2h 17m

Synopsis: Rural Mississippi in the 1960s, before the civil rights movement gained much momentum, was a cesspool of racism and bigotry. In the town of Jackson, where every upper-middle class housewife hires the services of a negro maid to cook, clean, and raise her children, recent college grad Skeeter (Stone) decides to collect testimonies from the maids of her friends and neighbors. Looking to reveal the level of hardship these women go through on a daily basis, Skeeter’s project commences with the testament of a maid named Aibileen (Davis) who works for her friend Hilly (Howard). As the stories get darker Skeeter can’t help but become more involved, and before she knows it her sympathies for negroes ostracizes her. She and the women she interviews, with tensions growing throughout the town, grow increasingly disconcerted, but despite the dangerous risks they take they must believe that their collaboration is for a higher purpose. When fortune smiles and Skeeter’s work is published as a compilation of anonymous depositions a palpable sense of relief can be felt, as though the gravity of what they accomplished had drastically changed their world in an instant. However, the reality is that what they had done had not yet changed their world as they had hoped, but it did begin to change. And in a town where progress hadn’t been seen in ages, to see it again at all is enough to provide hope that they might get to see even more of it.

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Actor Enver Gjokaj, a man who Marisa says is one to keep an eye on because of his impressive range

We here at Movie-Thoughts find it very interesting to keep tabs on actors throughout their careers, especially from the time when they make their big break to when they become a full-fledged star. Below is a list of 7 actors and actresses from movies and/or television shows that our writer Marisa Carpico contests are worth keeping a close eye on, because you’re bound to see more of them in the future. Some names you might recognize, as they’ve been in the professional acting arena for several years, but they might not have thus far had the kind of notoriety that propels the gifted few into the “A” Class of Hollywood.

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Lea Michele: Glee fans will know her as the borderline-obnoxious overachiever, Rachel from Fox’s hit show, but before she lusted over the cute quarterback, she lusted over the cute rebel in the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical Spring Awakening.  As a successful Broadway actress with plays like Awakening, for which she was nominated for a Drama Desk Award, and Les Misérables on her résumé, Michele clearly has talent.  Her abilities are on display in every episode of Glee where she lends her incredible vocals to tracks like “Don’t Stop Believing” and “My Life Would Suck Without You,” both of which had strong performances on the Billboard Top 100 Chart.  However, though her singing is certainly excellent, her acting is just as interesting.  During her show-stopping performance of “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from Funny Girl during the “Sectionals” episode, Michele lent the song an energy and abandon that made her character’s desperate need for fame evident.  Michele’s skill at bringing Rachel to the point of unbearable, but always making her vulnerable and talented enough to keep viewers from hating her is likely what garnered her a Golden Globe nomination.  The big challenge for Michele in 2010 will be to find roles that show off more than just her vocal talents. Read the rest of this entry »