Five Favorite Films with Harmony Korine (68 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Tuesday, Apr. 02 2013, 09:27 AM

Filmmaker, provocateur, degenerate, genius: Harmony Korine is the writer of Kids and Ken Park, and the director of Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, Mister Lonely, Trash Humpers and Spring Breakers -- the latter of which also happens to be, thus far, the best American film of 2013. Here are Mr. Korine's all-time favorite movies.

Five Favorite Films with Kristin Chenoweth (52 comments)

by Tim Ryan on Thursday, Mar. 28 2013, 02:00 PM

Kristin Chenoweth first made a dent in the public consciousness as Glinda the Good Witch in Wicked, a Broadway smash about the early years of the The Wizard of Oz witches. Since then, she's maintained a healthy career in television, and she's even become a staple at awards shows. She next stars in Family Weekend, opening Friday in limited release, and we recently chatted with her about her favorite movies, as well as the differences between working on the stage and screen and why she's drawn to dark comedies.

Five Favorite Films with Derek Cianfrance (46 comments)

by RT Staff on Thursday, Mar. 28 2013, 01:59 PM

Derek Cianfrance's 2010 drama Blue Valentine earned strong reviews and confirmed stars Michelle Williams and Ryan Gosling as among the best actors of their generation. For his follow-up, the filmmaker has again enlisted Gosling, together with Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes, as part of an ambitious, three-part drama on the legacy of troubled fathers and sons. It's called The Place Beyond the Pines, and it opens in select theaters across the country this week. Here, we talk with Cianfrance about his favorite movies.

Five Favorite Films with Antoine Fuqua (92 comments)

by RT Staff on Wednesday, Mar. 20 2013, 02:41 PM

After rising through the ranks of music video auteurs in the 1990s, director Antoine Fuqua has carved out a feature career behind the camera on a series of tough action thrillers, including Brooklyn's Finest, The Replacement Killers and 2001's Training Day -- for which Denzel Washington took home the Best Actor Oscar. This week he's calling the shots on the year's first White House invasion epic Olympus Has Fallen, a sort of Die Hard-in Washington actioner starring Gerard Butler, Morgan Freeman and Aaron Eckhart. We caught up with Fuqua recently, where he talked about his five all-time favorite movies.

Five Favorite Films with Warwick Davis (71 comments)

by RT Staff on Wednesday, Mar. 13 2013, 12:11 PM

Since his acting debut at age 13, playing an Ewok in Return of the Jedi, Warwick Davis has gone on to be a part of some of the biggest and best-loved movies of the past 30 years -- including roles in the Harry Potter franchise, the Star Wars prequels and, of course, the mighty Leprechaun saga. He even had his own TV series created for him by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, HBO's Life's Too Short. This week, Davis marks the 25th anniversary of his inaugural leading role, in the George Lucas-produced, Ron Howard-directed fantasy adventure Willow, which arrives on Blu-ray for the first time. We had a chance to chat with Davis recently, where he talked about five of his favorite movies.

Five Favorite Films with Noomi Rapace (69 comments)

by RT Staff on Thursday, Mar. 07 2013, 12:41 PM

Noomi Rapace rose to international stardom as Lisbeth Salander in the original adaptation of Stieg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its sequels, success she parlayed into roles in Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows and Ridley Scott's hit Alien prequel, Prometheus. With a sequel to the latter in the works and two movies opposite Tom Hardy on the horizon, Rapace is balancing a burgeoning Hollywood career with acclaimed roles in her native Sweden.

This week, she stars opposite Colin Farrell, Terrence Howard and Isabelle Huppert in the action thriller Dead Man Down, which reunites her with Dragon Tattoo director Niels Arden Oplev for his English-language debut. We spoke with the actress recently and got the scoop on her all-time favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Ray Winstone (24 comments)

by RT Staff on Friday, Mar. 01 2013, 07:08 AM

Chances are that when audiences think "tough Cockney geezer" they picture Ray Winstone, the veteran British actor whose enduring gallery of rogues has practically given him trademark on the type. From his early roles as young punks and ne'er do-wells in movies like Quadrophenia, Scum and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains through his unforgettable performances in Nil by Mouth and Sexy Beast, Winstone cornered the market in British hard men -- and directors like Martin Scorsese (The Departed) and Steven Spielberg (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) took note.

Winstone has just wrapped filming Darren Aronofsky's Noah opposite Russell Crowe, and this week he's in theaters as the lead in British hit The Sweeney -- an adaptation of the iconic 1970s police show on which, coincidentally, the star landed one of his earliest roles. We had a chance to chat with Winstone recently about his all-time favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Jason Mewes (37 comments)

by RT Staff on Tuesday, Feb. 26 2013, 01:13 PM

You know him most famously as the "Jay" in "Jay and Silent Bob," the odd couple that frequently pops up in Kevin Smith's films (Smith himself plays Silent Bob), but Jason Mewes has managed to stay quite busy outside of his collaborations with his longtime friend (which currently includes a weekly podcast). His latest role comes in noobz, a wacky road trip comedy that pokes fun at the world of competitive gaming. Mewes recently stopped by the RT office for a guest spot on our Rotten Toatoes radio show and stayed a bit longer to offer us his Five Favorite Films. Click through to see what they were!

Five Favorite Films with Jon Cryer (58 comments)

by Kerr Lordygan on Wednesday, Jan. 23 2013, 04:11 PM

Two time Emmy winner Jon Cryer is one of the funniest men on TV, with Two and a Half Men still enjoying success in its tenth season. But we've also enjoyed his quite memorable film work for years. No child of the 1980s can forget his "Duckie Dance" in Pretty in Pink, Hot Shots! still makes us laugh, and some of us fondly recall him as a punk rocker in the Penelope Spheeris film Dudes. Now, after a DVD release of his stage performance in Stephen Sondheim's Company and the upcoming Sundance debut of Ass Backwards with Casey Wilson, June Raphael, Alicia Silverstone and Vincent D'Onofrio, this terrific talent was gracious enough to take some time out and discuss his Five Favorite Films.

Five Favorite Films with West Memphis Three's Damien Echols (42 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Tuesday, Dec. 25 2012, 05:00 PM

It's hard to imagine just how surreal Damien Echols' life must have been. In 1994, the teenager was sentenced to death for his alleged part, along with two others, in the gruesome 1993 murder of three boys in Arkansas. Convicted by state prosecutors riding a wave of public and media hysteria, the so-called West Memphis Three spent the next 18 years in prison -- until an accumulation of new evidence raised doubts as to their guilt and, in 2011, they were finally set free. Having spent most of his adult life incarcerated, Echols has since become something of a celebrity, drawing the support of people like Peter Jackson, Johnny Depp and Eddie Vedder, who lent their weight to the campaign to free the falsely-accused men and expose the miscarriage of justice. Jackson also co-produced an extensive new documentary about the case -- Amy Berg's West of Memphis -- and with the film opening theatrically this week, we had the opportunity to sit down and talk with Echols recently. Read on for more of the interview, in which Echols talks about life in prison, his admiration for Stephen King, how the support of those famous pals helped save him from death row, and his plans with Depp to produce a screen version of his memoir. First up, he took a moment to talk about his five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Alan Cumming (22 comments)

by RT Staff on Wednesday, Dec. 12 2012, 02:08 PM

An accomplished performer on both stage and screen, Alan Cumming has played an impressive array of parts in his career -- from roles in blockbusters like X-2 and GoldenEye to independent films to projects as diverse as Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut and Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids. It's testament to Cumming's enduring talent that he's earning some of the best notices of his career for his latest turn, in this week's Any Day Now, a moving drama about a gay couple in '70s Hollywood fighting a biased legal system to keep their adopted son.

With the movie opening theatrically this week, we got the chance to speak with Cumming about his five favorite movies.

Five Favorite Films with Ted (90 comments)

by RT Staff on Monday, Dec. 10 2012, 11:17 AM

He's the star (well, co-star if you count Mark Wahlberg) of 2012's highest-grossing comedy (unless you count Breaking Dawn -- Part 2), so we felt it only fitting to ask Ted, the titular furball from Seth MacFarlane's R-rated hit, to give us his all-time five favorite films. "Besides Flash Gordon," he says, "which you already know is my number one favorite film of all time." Indeed, anyone who's seen the movie will remember Ted and John's shared affection for the camp sci-fi classic, and the bear also gave us another insight into his creative process: "Yes, the hotel room fight scene was inspired in part by Road House," he reveals. So now you know that. Ted arrives on Blu-ray and DVD this week.

Five Favorite Films with Charlie Hunnam (50 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Wednesday, Dec. 05 2012, 01:47 PM

It's a big, busy year ahead for Charlie Hunnam. Besides his ongoing role in TV hit Sons of Anarchy, the actor is starring in Guillermo del Toro's massively anticipated sci-fi throwdown Pacific Rim, which marks the director's first film in five years and looks set to be one of 2013's summer smashes. In the meantime, Hunnam is appearing opposite Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde in this week's snowbound neo-noir thriller Deadfall, in which he plays an ex-con boxer tangled up in a deadly game of survival. Read on for our chat and Hunnam's five favorite films of the moment.

Five Favorite Films with Hitchcock Director Sacha Gervasi (19 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Wednesday, Nov. 21 2012, 01:45 PM

Arguably the most famous director in cinema history (and the auteur behind the recently crowned Greatest Movie of All Time), Alfred Hitchcock can't be an easy subject for an on-screen biography. British-born director Sacha Gervasi has taken a shot at it with this week's Hitchcock, which adapts -- with some creative license -- Stephen Rebello's 1990 book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho, while exploring the relationship between Hitch (played by Anthony Hopkins) and his wife Alma Reville (Helen Mirren), as he fights to make the thriller that would prove one of his biggest and most influential hits. Gervasi, known for his hugely entertaining 2007 metal documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil, called in to chat about Hitchcock, the challenge of taking on a movie icon, working with Hopkins, and separating the man from the mythology. Read on for that, but first, he talks about his five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Tony Bennett (35 comments)

by Grae Drake on Wednesday, Nov. 21 2012, 09:41 AM

Chances are, if you're breathing, you're a fan of Tony Bennett. Winner of 16 Grammys and 2 Emmys, Mr. Bennett is also an accomplished painter and founder of The Frank Sinatra School of the Arts. His career has spanned over 60 of his 86 years, and you might assume that he wants to slow down a little, but that couldn't be more wrong. In fact, he's now the subject of another documentary, this time executive produced by his son and manager Danny Bennett. It puts a beautiful twist on music documentaries. The Zen of Bennett is as artistic as the man himself, and shares with you the incredibly, well, zen perspective of a worldwide legend.

Five Favorite Films with Starlet Director Sean Baker (19 comments)

by RT Staff on Wednesday, Nov. 07 2012, 01:17 PM

One of the buzz films at this year's SXSW festival, writer-director Sean Baker's Starlet explores the unusual friendship between a 21-year-old actress (Dree Hemingway) and an 85-year-old woman (Besedka Johnson) when their lives cross paths in California's San Fernando Valley. Featuring breakout performances -- especially from Hemingway, the daughter of actress Mariel and great-granddaughter of writer Ernest -- the movie is getting early praise from critics ahead of its release in New York and Los Angeles this week. We caught up with director Sean Baker recently, who shared with us an interesting list of his five favorite films.

Five Favorite Films with Joe Dante (26 comments)

by Grae Drake on Monday, Oct. 22 2012, 02:06 PM

Joe Dante's movies root themselves into your psyche and refuse to let go. Those little guys with eating restrictions (Gremlins), watching movies during a national crisis (Matinee), having creepy neighbors (The 'Burbs), and accidentally getting shrunk down and injected into someone (Innerspace) remain some of the most memorable of all time. It shouldn't come as any surprise that his latest film, The Hole, is pretty much for kids, just not the ones who are faint of heart. Here are the great films that inspired this fantastic filmmaker. Watching them is kind of like going to film school for free. You can send Joe a thank you card.

Five Favorite Films with Sean Stone (24 comments)

by RT Staff on Thursday, Oct. 18 2012, 07:25 AM

Sean Stone hasn't even been on the planet three decades and has already played Jim Morrison, Nixon's brother, and countless other roles in some of the finest films of his lifetime, directed by his father Oliver Stone. But he's not just a pretty face--he's taking up the family business and directing his own movies now, with terrifying results. Greystone Park is a found-footage scare-fest that blends Jacob's Ladder-esque visuals with Blair Witch tension, then ratchets them up about 300% and adds in spears and chicks wearing ball gowns dancing in mental hospitals.

Five Favorite Films with Anna Kendrick (107 comments)

by Ryan Fujitani on Friday, Oct. 05 2012, 03:28 PM

Every once in a while, a few young actors and actresses emerge who help reassure us all that Hollywood is in good hands. Anna Kendrick, whose latest film Pitch Perfect expands into wide release this week, belongs on that short list. After securing a supporting role in the continuing pop culture phenomenon that is The Twilight Saga, Kendrick went on to nab an Oscar nomination for her superb work alongside George Clooney and Vera Farmiga in Jason Reitman's Up in the Air. That breakout performance led to roles in widely praised films like Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and 50/50, and while she currently appears in three movies out in theaters, she has yet another -- Robert Redford's The Company You Keep -- set to open in November. Last week, RT chatted with Anna about Pitch Perfect, but first, of course, she gave us her Five Favorite Films.

Five Favorite Films with ParaNorman Directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell (52 comments)

by Luke Goodsell on Thursday, Aug. 16 2012, 11:58 AM

Following the success of Henry Selick's wondrous Coraline in 2009, the team at Laika studios are back this week with their second animated feature, ParaNorman, another stop-motion marvel concerning the misadventure of a young outsider and his spooky connection to the land of the dead. Pitched as "John Hughes meets John Carpenter," it's written by Coraline and Corpse Bride animation artist Chris Butler and co-directed by Butler and Aardman alum Sam Fell, with voices by Kodi Smit-McPhee, Anna Kendrick and John Goodman, and music by Jon Brion. We had a chance to chat with Fell and Butler this week ahead of the movie's release, where they talked about five of their favorite movies -- and how they influenced the creation and execution of ParaNorman.