COMING SOON

SYNOPSIS

Luke (Gosling) is a professional motorcycle rider who turns to bank robberies to support his newborn son, but when he crosses paths with a rookie police officer (Cooper) their violent confrontation spirals into a tense generational feud. THE PLACE BEYOND THE PINES is a rich dramatic thriller that traces the intersecting lives of fathers and sons, cops and robbers, heroes and villains.

CAST/CREW

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper, Eva Mendes, Ben Mendelsohn, Rose Byrne, Mahershalalhashbaz Ali and Ray Liotta

Directed by:  Derek Cianfrance

Written by: Derek Cianfrance, Ben Coccio & Darius Marder

Producers:  Jamie Patricof, Lynette Howell, Alex Orlovsky

Co-Producer: Carrie Fix

Associate Producers:  Crystal Powell, Katie McNeill

Director of Photography:  Sean Bobbitt

Production Designer:  Inbal Weinberg

Costume Designer:  Erin Benach

Editors:  Jim Helton, Ron Patane

Music Supervisor:  Gabe Hilfer

Casting: Cindy Tolan

Still Photographer:  Atsushi Nishijima

View at: IMDb.com

Work with indie budgets, forge industry alliances

Nabbing an Oscar nom for star Ryan Gosling, “Half Nelson” grossed more than $4 million worldwide. Last year, the trio’s followup, “Blue Valentine,” again with Gosling, earned co-star Michelle Williams a nod from the Academy.

This year, Silverwood Films’ Lynette Howell, Hunting Lane Films’ Jamie Patricof and Verisimilitude’s Alex Orlovsky reunited with Gosling for “The Place Beyond the Pines,” a film they see as their biggest and most commercial indie project yet.

It follows pro motorcycle rider-turned-bank robber Luke Glanton (Gosling), who finds himself in a showdown with rookie cop-turned-politician Avery Cross (Bradley Cooper). Eva Mendes plays the mother of Glanton’s son, Rose Byrne plays Cross’ wife and Ray Liotta plays a corrupt cop.

“(Lynette, Jamie and Alex) are great creative allies, and you can trust them. They have very highly attuned bullshit meters,” Gosling says. “The films I’ve made with them are so different from any others I’ve made — they’ve been getting bigger, yet have very small budgets compared to most movies. ”

(None of the principals would reveal the pic’s budget — an ever important factor in bidding among spendthrift distribs. “Half Nelson’s” was a reported $700,000; Blue Valentine’s $4 million.)

“Pines,” now shooting in Schenectady, N.Y., also marks two other reunions: Gosling with his “Lars and the Real Girl” producer Sidney Kimmel (who solely financed the project) and his “Valentine” writer/director Derek Cianfrance.

The new film is a big stretch from that largely improvised romantic drama, but according to Gosling, this reunion between actor and director came from an almost psychic connection.

“I’ve been having this fantasy for a long time about robbing banks, a way to do it and get away with it” he explains. “I told Derek, if I was ever going to rob a bank, I would have a U-Haul truck parked in an alley nearby, ride up on a motorcycle, run in with my helmet on, rob the place, ride up into the back of the U-Haul and drive away. Derek said, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding me — I just wrote a script about that.”

While it may sound too bizarre to be true, Gosling notes that an often successful Israeli bank robber used the same method. “It’s a great idea that was out there, and we all tuned into it,” he says. Given Gosling’s rising star and the genre aspects of the script (co-written by Cianfrance, Ben Coccio and Darius Marder), the project was easier to finance than “Valentine,” which had funding and locations disappear and change numerous times over its 12-year odyssey to the screen.

“People who are less crazy would’ve given up,” says Gosling of the producing trio.

“During the filming of ‘Blue Valentine,’ Derek said, ‘I want you three to produce (“Pines”),’” Howell recalls. “We’re all very hands-on, with very similar tastes, but we have no problem arguing or disagreeing with each other. Alex is a very calm, levelheaded guy, and Jamie — I say this in the most wonderful way — in some ways is like a bull in a china shop. He’s fiercely passionate about doing whatever it takes and has no fear, and a lot of that has rubbed off on me over the years.”

Howell and Patricof tend to concentrate on financing and casting, and Orlovsky often focuses on post.

After WME and CAA packaged and repped the new project with Gosling attached, and WME Global head Graham Taylor shopped it to financiers, the filmmakers felt most at home with Kimmel and his one-stop production shop.

“SKE functions like a mini-studio even though it doesn’t distribute films — you have a creative exec, a production exec, a chain of command,” Howell says.

Another source of comfort was SKE’s deal with Nick Meyer’s international sales outfit Sierra/Affinity.

After shedding its marketing and distribution advisory divisions three years ago, Sidney Kimmel Entertainment is making a comeback of sorts with a trio of features (co-financed with Lakeshore Entertainment) that appear far more commercial than its previous fare. This is its first solo financing effort since the company’s change in direction, notes exec producer and SKE prexy Jim Tauber.

“We had some concerns because our company is moving in the direction of more wide-release, commercially leaning movies and away from more platform-oriented releases,” explains exec producer and SKE production prexy Matt Berenson. “But we saw (“Pines”) was a multigenerational crime drama much more ambitious in scope than ‘Blue Valentine,’ and when Derek talked about it in the context of ‘The Deer Hunter,’ we knew he understood it was more the wide-release, elevated-action film we’re trying to make.”

Yet the film is clearly targeted at adults, Berenson says. SKE worked with the producers and Cianfrance to further develop the characters’ motivations and enhance moments when they’re in jeopardy.

Orlovsky cites the 46-day shoot and cast as a testament to its commerciality.

“It’s a big film,” adds Patricof. “It’s got a big cast, action, bank robberies, shootouts, car chases, as well as a great story as a foundation. That pretty much describes what studio movie gets made these days.”

Less commercial may be Gosling’s bleach blond page boy haircut. “I’m a little nervous to take credit for that, but that’s my funeral,” he says with a laugh. A picture of it has already appeared all over the internet, sometimes as part of the “Hey Girl” meme that adds silly captions to his photos. It’s definitely the most commercial venture for Howell, Patricof and Orlovsky (with the possible exception of Howell’s upcoming “Shark Night 3D,” the sole departure from their otherwise highbrow filmography), and just the latest in what all three hope will be a series of partnerships. (Patricof and Orlovsky were partners in Hunting Lane, until Patricof’s desire to relocate to Los Angeles a few years ago led Orlovsky to join Tyler Brodie and Hunter Gray’s Verisimilitude).

“On our joint projects, it helps that Jamie and Lynette are there to have access to the agencies and a side of the industry I’m not as involved in,” notes Orlovsky.

Howell teamed with Orlovsky on Azazel Jacobs’ just-released “Terri,” and she has a thriller and a true-life drama in the works with Patricof. In addition to more studio projects, Gosling plans to star in his directorial debut, a remake of Taylor Hackford’s musical drama “The Idolmaker.”

Their shared rise and trials seem to have bonded the producers and star — Patricof says he often trades advice with Gosling on their prospective projects.

“The three of them just complement each other really well,” Gosling says. “They’re like Neapolitan ice cream, and their flavor changes depending on how far behind schedule we are.” And where does Gosling fit in to the mix? “I guess I’m the soggy box that holds the ice cream together.”

Hunting Lane Films is showing some “Muscle,” launching development of a series for HBO based on Sam Fussell’s bodybuilding memoir, with “Blue Valentine” writer-director Derek Cianfrance attached.

“Muscle” is the first project from Hunting Lane’s new development fund for features budgeted between $6 million and $20 million along with scripted TV projects.

“Muscle” is set up in partnership with John Lesher and Adam Kassan’s Le Grisbi Prods. Lesher and Kassan will exec produce alongside Hunting Lane CEO Jamie Patricof. Fussell’s book, first published two decades ago, recounts his four-year immersion in the bodybuilding life. Fussell and Cianfrance will pen the script and serve as co-exec producers.

The announcement comes with HLF’s “Blue Valentine” having opened strongly for the Weinstein Co. with $291,607 at five playdates in five days.

“We noticed that there were more and more opportunities to acquire rights and develop projects now that the studios have decreased the number of producers with traditional overhead deals,” Patricof said.

The shingle has also hired former New Line staffer Mark Tuohy and promoted Katie McNeill to posts as creative executives.

HLF’s “Little Birds,” written and directed by first-timer Elgin James, will screen in competition at Sundance. The drama, starring Juno Temple, Kay Panabaker, Kyle Gallner, Leslie Mann and Kate Bosworth, tells the story of two 15-year-old girls who test the limits of their friendship when one follows the other in an escape to Los Angeles.

Hunting Lane’s credits include features “Half Nelson” and “Sugar,” reality TV series “The Rachel Zoe Project” and Ice Cube’s doc “Straight Outta L.A.” It’s in development on a pair of pics: writer Justin Marks’ “Borderline,” with Ricardo de Montreuil directing, and Cianfrance’s “The Place Beyond the Pines,” with Ryan Gosling attached to star.

Find the original article HERE

Our movie critics spent much of the year watching flickering lights in windowless rooms. Here are the 10 movies that made it worthwhile — and a few they’d like to forget.

Neumaier’s Top 10 Movies of 2010

1. Blue Valentine
Director Derek Cianfrance’s intense, beautiful, emotionally raw drama stars Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling as a couple whose marriage is dissolving in front of them. The movie — which almost earned an NC-17 for emotionally tricky scenes of sexuality — is memorable for a depth of emotion that is naturalistic, heartbreaking, real and rare.

2. The Kids Are All Right
In laid-back L.A., teens Joni and Laser (Mia Wasikowska, Josh Hutcherson) reach out to the anonymous sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo) who helped their lesbian moms (Annette Bening, Julianne Moore) make a family. In Lisa Cholodenko’s down-to-earth movie, a family sometimes stubbornly makes room for change within it.

4. Toy Story 3
The best movie trilogy of all time — yes, you read that correctly — ends with a meditation on growing up, moving on and the transformational power of play. Heavy stuff? Absolutely. Thoughtfully handled? Always. Funnier than a barrel of monkeys? Hey, we’re talking about Pixar.

5. The Social Network
Aaron Sorkin’s zip-click dialogue opens up like windows within windows as Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg (a calculating Jesse Eisenberg) connects people and alienates himself. David Fincher’s direction is electric.

6. The King’s Speech
A terrific Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush, royal and commoner, reach an understanding while working to help the former — George VI, stutterer and accidental king — be understood as World War II begins. This old-fashioned, charming movie is a unique take on the uneasy connections men have with brothers, friends and leadership.

‘How Do You Know’ tops Neumaier’s worst films of 2010. (James/AP)

7. The Tillman Story
Amir Bar-Lev’s stirring documentary on the football star/soldier/victim of friendly fire paints a portrait of someone who, even in death, continues to stand for the right things. Credit the Tillman family for that, since — like their son Pat — their intelligence, honesty and quiet strength are what the nation is about.

8. The Fighter
Speaking of fightin’ families: The one in David O. Russell’s fact-based drama seem made for the movies, but Micky Ward and Dicky Edlund — played by a likable Mark Wahlberg and a mesmerizing Christian Bale — could spring only from a true American menagerie, presided over by the wild lioness played by Melissa Leo.

9. Let Me In
A genuinely creepy drama, not because of its horror elements (vampire girl, burn victim, dismembered bullies) but because its feelings of childhood angst are so real.

10. Get Low
A gorgeously detailed backwoods fable with dead-on performances by Robert Duvall (a cranky hermit), Bill Murray (a hopeful funeral director) and ever-beautiful Sissy Spacek (as a lost love). As satisfying as a campfire tale that changes with the telling.

8. Never Let Me Go
The haunting adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel about class — and the dystopian notion that having a soul is a selective thing — stars Carey Mulligan as a wounded healer, with Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley as sacrificial lambs. It’s hard to shake because it’s so very human.

Neumaier’s Top 5 Worst Movies of 2010

1. How Do You Know
Neither dumb rom-com nor smart dramedy, this milky failure is doubly depressing for being a James L. Brooks film.

2. The Spy Next Door
Aging Jackie Chan’s shadowless kick at a family flick.

3. Alice in Wonderland
Tim Burton is all macabre fun until someone loses a smile.

4. MacGruber
MacGruber, you have one second to erase this from our memory!

5. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
Dumb videogame movie, thy name is “PoP.”

Review: ‘Blue Valentine’ Captures Marital Agony

The Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling marital drama “Blue Valentine” is agonizing to watch yet relentlessly compelling, even illuminating, playing almost like a sober documentary rather than a narrative film.

In this publicity image released by The Weinstein Company, Michelle Williams, left,

and Ryan Gosling are shown in a scene from, “Blue Valentine.” (AP Photo/The Weinstein Company)

(AP)

Though fictional, “Blue Valentine” is a document of sorts, a chronicle of a crumbling marriage that often feels as honest and painful as if it were a nonfiction film about real people putting each other through absolute hell.

That sense of eavesdropping authenticity results from the commitment of Williams and Gosling, who remained signed on to star for years before filming finally started, and the perseverance of director and co-writer Derek Cianfrance, who honed the script for 12 years.

The behind-the-scenes troubles for the film — including an initial adults-only NC-17 rating for sexual content — reflect the bumps and bruises of marriage that Cianfrance set out to illustrate.

Like any marriage, the result is a beautifully idiosyncratic portrait of a relationship that starts with the brightest of hopes and inevitably falters as the years and mileage accumulate.

“Blue Valentine” follows a pivotal day in the life of Cindy and Dean, a married couple spending a night away from their young daughter (Faith Wladyka, in her screen debut) in hopes of renewing the romantic spark that has steadily faded between them.

Williams’ Cindy is a medical assistant who once dreamed of being a doctor, and Gosling’s Dean is a housepainter whose only aspiration in life was to be a family man.

They once held deep affection and passion for each other, but the unasked question with which both grapple is whether they ever were truly compatible for the long haul.

Cianfrance intersperses the present-day marital scenes with lovingly nostalgic flashbacks to the start of Cindy and Dean’s romance six years earlier.

The authenticity is heightened by Cianfrance’s filming methods. The flashbacks were shot first, on Super 16mm film using a single lens and handheld cameras, lending those portions a hazier look, like happy memories of a time of spontaneity and possibility. The present-day scenes have a sharper, unforgiving quality, shot using two digital cameras fixed on tripods, with long lenses, one each following Williams and Gosling, allowing the actors to prowl the sets at will.

The scenes from their marriage were shot a month after the flashbacks. Williams and Gosling had a contest to see who could pack on the most weight in that time to help show the intervening years (Williams won, gaining 15 pounds).

But camera styles and gaining weight are incidental to the film’s main strength — the raw, ferocious, punishing performances delivered by Williams and Gosling.

There are moments of sublime sweetness in the early days of Cindy and Dean’s love story that could melt the heart of the most unsentimental cynic. To see where it all leads as they drift apart is heartbreaking — certainly not as heartbreaking as watching friends in real life break apart, but about as close as you can come in a film.

When Williams and Gosling fight, make love, trade jokes, share an awkward conversation in the car, every second feels real.

It’s probably that sense of tough truth that led raters at the Motion Picture Association of America to brand “Blue Valentine” with an NC-17 rating for sexual content. That rating would have prohibited those younger than 17 from seeing the film, but the filmmakers appealed and got it lowered to an R rating.

The NC-17 rating was absurd, since the film’s sex scenes, including one in which Gosling’s character performs oral sex on Williams’ character, are not that explicit. But that’s part of the great illusion the filmmakers create: Everything, sex included, seems so much more real than it is.

Not many parents will be thinking “Blue Valentine” is a film they must take their teenagers to see over the holidays. But an NC-17 rating would have held the film out of many theaters and made plenty of adults think twice about seeing it.

And it’s a film that should be seen by as many people as possible.

“Blue Valentine,” a Weinstein Co. release, is rated R on appeal for strong sexual content, language and a beating. Running time: 112 minutes. Three and a half stars out of four.

Motion Picture Association of America rating definitions:

G — General audiences. All ages admitted.

PG — Parental guidance suggested. Some material may not be suitable for children.

PG-13 — Special parental guidance strongly suggested for children under 13. Some material may be inappropriate for young children.

R — Restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

NC-17 — No one under 17 admitted.

Michelle Williams & Ryan Gosling talk about messy sex, bad body art, and the long road to their new film, Blue Valentine.

By: Lynn Hirschberg

Photographed by Inez van Lamsweerde & Vinoodh Matadin
Styled by Lori Goldstein
October 2010
Lynn Hirschberg: Michelle, you’re in Toronto making a movie called Take This Waltz, with Seth Rogen and directed by Sarah Polley.
Michelle Williams: I spent the day in a chlorinated pool in my bathing suit. On Friday I’m getting naked with a group of women—all ages, shapes, and sizes—in a YMCA locker room. I have the usual self-loathing and body issues, and yet I seem to be naked in a lot of movies. The nudity has to end somewhere [Laughs]. It would be really nice if the pictures did not get posted online. But then maybe that’s a reason to do it: Just get naked, and who cares if it ends up on the Internet.
LH: Do you spend a lot of time online?
MW: I actively stay away from reading about myself. But I am a slave to my computer. I don’t think that’s good—would Tolstoy even have written Anna Karenina if there were an Internet? I hate myself when I e-mail. E-mail is like a dopamine hit—you wait for it and then you get it. I gave up my computer during my last movie, Meek’s Cutoff, which is a period piece about a woman on the Oregon Trail. I took to letter writing. My girlfriends got some great letters. But when it ended I was back on e-mail. I’m an addict.
LH: In Blue Valentine, out December 31, you and Ryan Gosling have an extremely raw and very naked sex scene.
MW: We never rehearsed anything, and those were really dark days. We shot the beginning of our relationship first, and it was fun and alive. Then we did the sex scenes and it was…toxic. Ryan and I had stopped relating to each other as Ryan and Michelle. Those scenes took forever. I had a long drive from set to home each night, and I would roll down all the windows and turn up the music as loud as I could and hang my head out the window like a dog and scream. It was my escape.
LH:Did you get nervous during those scenes?
MW: When I work I’m not nervous. Work is this fabulous free zone. There’s no judgment. My problems arrive when I’m not working. At a photo shoot, for instance, I feel like a sham. I feel like they’re trying to cover up what’s wrong with me. It’s probably not true, but just my dirty mind at work.
LH: During the acclaim and Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain, did you have a difficult time?
MW: I was frozen. You’re supposed to take advantage of a nomination and the offers that come your way, but I said no to everything. I finally said yes to I’m Not There, which was directed by Todd Haynes. I played a character like Edie Sedgwick, the Warhol superstar. She was overt and sexual and confident, and that was different for me. It was a small part, but a big deal for me.
LH: You’ve acted since you were a child—you’d think it would be second nature to play any character.
MW: I was 10 when I started getting paid to act. I moved to L.A. when I was 15 and I got emancipated from my parents. I thought I knew everything at 15 [Laughs]. That feels a million miles away—I don’t feel I’m the same person anymore.
LH: You were cast in Dawson’s Creek almost immediately after you arrived in L.A. I’ve always believed that being in a successful TV show affords young actors a financial cushion that allows them to do interesting work.
MW: Absolutely. Dawson’s Creek allowed me to make choices based only on desire. I was so lucky to get Dawson’s. I was auditioning for pilots twice a day. You get used to a rhythm of rejection. But auditioning taught me to change my clothes really fast. To this day I can get in and out of my bra and panties faster than anyone [Laughs].
Dawson’s probably saved my life. I did it for six and a half years, and it gave me financial security. A project like Blue Valentine took years to get off the ground, and I was able to stick with it. I first read the script when I was 21, 22, and it became my reason for being for the longest time. When I ran into Ryan [Gosling], he said, “What about that movie?” I was surprised; I thought Blue Valentine existed only in my head. Until he said that, I was worried it wasn’t quite as good as I had thought. He validated my reaction.
Filming the movie was like being in a kind of bubble. Making Blue Valentine made me feel like I could quit. That’s the story you tell yourself to remind yourself that you have options.
LH: If you quit acting, what else would you do?
MW: That’s the problem: I profoundly don’t know how to do anything else. Except…I could be a pie baker. I like to bake a blackberry pie. I am pretty proud of my pie skills. Pie could be my future.
LH: Ryan, you’re from Canada, but you seem distinctly American. You don’t have a Canadian accent.
Ryan Gosling: As a kid I decided that a Canadian accent doesn’t sound tough. I thought guys should sound like Marlon Brando. So now I have a phony accent that I can’t shake, so it’s not phony anymore. I’m going for the Madonna thing, the Lady Gaga thing—a phony accent that becomes your trademark.
LH: And you have interesting tattoos—they look like you got them in prison.
RG: I like when they look bad, but no one will do bad tattoos. So I did one myself. That’s why it’s bad. I’m waiting to get old—I think old guys with tattoos look good.
LH: You can’t be buried in a Jewish cemetery, but then you’re not Jewish.
RG: I’m honorary. I did a film called The Believer, where I played a Jew who is a neo-Nazi skinhead. That part gift wrapped me my career. I got that movie when I had done Young Hercules and The Mickey Mouse Club. Nobody wanted to see me. Months earlier I was in New Zealand with a fake tan and leather pants, fighting imaginary sphinxes. After The Believer I was at Sundance, and people were talking to me about my craft.
LH: Did you like being a Mouseketeer?
RG: I wasn’t happy on the show, but I was happy to not be going to school, to be working. More than the show, Disney World made a big impression on me. I still go to Disneyland as much as I can. The Haunted Mansion is my favorite ride. I first rode it when I was 12 or 13, and when I came around the corner and all those ghosts were dancing, it made death look like it would be fun. The Mouseketeers didn’t end up using me very much, which felt awful, but the park had a big impact on me. Disney had this dream, and you could experience it. I loved the attention to detail. There’s a lesson in that.
LH: Your latest movie, Blue Valentine, is an intense depiction of a romance. The movie is extraordinarily intimate—it almost feels like a documentary. Was it difficult to make?
RG: It took forever; for four years Blue Valentine would be ready to go, and then the film would fall apart again due to financing or timing. It was always me and Michelle [Williams]—I think Michelle was involved for five or six years. Finally, the planets aligned and we shot it last summer in Pennsylvania. The director, Derek Cianfrance, had us living as these characters. If, for instance, today was a fighting day, we would just pick fights with each other all day. Once, I fell asleep in the middle of a take, and we filmed through it. After I woke up, Michelle said, “We did the scene, and we filmed you sleeping on the couch.”
LH: How about the sex scene? The couple is fighting, and it’s the angriest, most realistic sex scene I’ve seen in a film in years.
RG: You mean the trying-not-to-have-sex sex scene? It was hard…a lot of times actors can trick people into thinking something is happening when it’s not happening, and we had to call ourselves out on anything that didn’t feel honest. Actors become very professional and proficient about watching out for each other’s light and not stepping on each other’s lines. All of these things are artificial, and you have to strip that away if you’re going to achieve a sense of intimacy. In real life sex is messy, and we wanted to get at that wonderful messiness.
LH: Did you watch a lot of John Cassavetes to get in the mood?
RG: Not really. But I love Peter Falk. I wish I could be Peter Falk. When I made The Notebook, the director, Nick Cassavetes, who is John’s son, used to show me his father’s movies. He told me so many stories: John would have an idea for a movie, and he’d wake Nick up in the middle of the night and pitch the story to him. Nick would start to fall asleep, and his dad would rearrange the plot to keep him interested. Actually, the story never mattered. John was mostly interested in the characters. If the character is true, the movie will fall into place. Or at least that’s what you hope.
LH: Is that why you watch a lot of reality TV? Are you looking for the truth on, say, Cake Wars?
RG: In a way. You do see human nature on those shows. But unfortunately fondant has changed the entire nature of cake decorating. It used to be more creative—fondant has changed everything.

Read More http://www.wmagazine.com/celebrities/2010/10/michelle_williams_ryan_gosling?printable=true#ixzz0zRMBd2jE

In a year of head-hanging cultural low points (we’re looking at you, Jersey Shore), ELLE presents the 25 best reasons to keep the faith—from the year’s must-hear genre-busting albums to Cher’s showstopping return to celluloid. (We’ll fist pump to that!)

August 30, 2010 5:00 p.m

5. OSCAR BAIT

Four beautifully calibrated performances have Academy Award handicappers already granting front-runner status to two eagerly anticipated love stories. In Derek Cianfrance’s Sundance favorite, Blue Valentine, Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams create a piercingly intimate portrait of a passionate marriage going off the rails. The story offers glimpses of a chemistry so joyous and specific that we feel the lovers’ anguish almost as sharply as they do. And veteran writer/director Edward Zwick reunites Brokeback Mountainvets Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway as a hotshot pharmaceutical salesman and an artist with early-stage Parkinson’s disease in Love and Other Drugs.

Photo: Blue Valentine: Davi Russo/The Weinstein Company

FIND THIS ARTICLE ONLINE HERE

http://www.awardsdaily.com/2010-contenders/best-picture/blue-valentine/

Blue Valentine is a film that hit a few of us pretty hard at the Cannes Film Fest. What is so remarkable about it is that the writer/director, Derek Cianfrance, took nearly ten years putting it together. More than that, he wanted his actors to practically live their parts. All of that effort might seem like too much, considering that it’s a rather small indie love story. But it paid off with a kind of authenticity rarely seen. You never doubt what these two have been through, and you feel their pain the whole way through.

The film is about the breakdown of a couple that was never really meant to be. They came together out of necessity – he (Ryan Gosling) because she was so beautiful and he wasn’t the kind of guy to get a girl like that (hard to believe that Gosling could ever morph into such a character, yet that’s exactly what he does). She (Michelle Williams) because she finds herself suddenly pregnant and hooks up with a guy who’s ready and willing to be her husband and, more importantly, a father to her baby.

The pain is palpable as she falls out of love with him and he tries everything he knows how to do to keep it together. The love between father and daughter is now at stake.

Blue Valentine is so authentic, in fact, that it’s still with me even after all of these months. I feel almost as though I lived this horror with them.

Both Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling give the performances of their short careers. Maybe that isn’t saying much, considering how young they are. But again, maybe this opens their doors to more challenging material on down the road.

I expect Blue Valentine, unless it puts people off for being too depressing, to earn, at the very least, nods for Williams and Gosling, but probably a screenplay nod for Cianfrance. Best Picture is still a long shot, but with the Weinstein co. behind it, anything’s possible.

Synopsis:

At age 26, scrawny, Oxford-educated Samuel Fussell entered a YMCA gym in New York to escape the terrors of big city life. Four years and 80 lbs. of firm, bulging muscle later, he was competing for bodybuilding titles in the “Iron Mecca” of Southern California-so weak from intense training and starvation he could barely walk. MUSCLE is the harrowing, often hilarious chronicle of Fussell’s divine obsession, his search for identity in a bizarre, eccentric world of “health fascists,” “gym bunnies” and “muscleheads”-and his devout, single-minded acceptance of illness, pain, nausea, and steroid-induced rage in his quest for the holy grail of physical perfection.