FEATURED POST
What happens when an actor decides to have a little fun?
On a normal day in my abnormal job, I interview people who make movies. Now and then, it's a lengthy conversation in person or on the phone; on other occasions, it's a brief sit-down in a small, over-lit hotel room rigged with cameras and lights. Every time you walk into one of those small rooms, I think it's very easy to remember and know that these actors, actresses and (sometimes) directors and producers don't know you, and they will assuredly not remember you from the last time you spoke. You have a polite conversation about the film and their work, and move on.
Usually.
On other occasions, though, an actor you've spoken to before feels like they know you, based on your chit-chat before interviews beginning and cameras rolling. (For example, Gosling and I both spent time in central Ontario -- he grew up near the place where I went to college -- and have talked about that before.) And perhaps, just perhaps, that actor wants to give you ... not grief, certainly, but, uh, a lively time. Maybe he or she just wants to mix it up a little bit. And they know you just well enough to do that for themselves and to you, with all the subtle things the difference between those two verbs implies.
BING: Ryan Gosling l St. Thomas, Ontario
Such was the case sitting down with Ryan Gosling to talk "Gangster Squad," which started -- and started going off the rails -- as soon as another person in the room (one of the many people who make these interviews happen, thanklessly, so thanks to them all here) noted in the waiting-for-it-all-to-start conversation that she'd seen me the day prior interviewing Sylvester Stallone, and here I was now, and life was funny. I agreed.
So, apparently, did Gosling: "You were with Stallone yesterday? What? I would like to spend our interview talking about Sylvester Stallone ... can't I have it my way, just once?"
I -- delicately -- tried to shift the conversation back to Mr. Gosling's film, "Gangster Squad."
You can see what happens below. And in advance, I blame myself.
For more on "Gangster Squad," check out our video interview with the cast:
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Plus 'Defiance' with Daniel Craig, 'Longmire: Season 1,' revisiting 'Khan,' and more
The big news of course is the Netflix original revival of "Arrested Development," which debuts on Sunday, May 26 when 15 episodes all launch at once. We'll try to get a review in by next week. Meanwhile, here's what's available now.
"The Dictator" (2012) is a Sacha Baron Cohen comedy that forgoes all pretense of mock documentary or reality TV parody to make a big, crazy, outrageous comedy that rides roughshod over all boundaries of taste to make both its point and its punchlines. And "it's all the more focused and consistently funny for that," argues MSN film critic Glenn Kenny. For this one, Baron Cohen plays Admiral General Aladeen the blithely brutal, oppressive, and self-aggrandizing dictator of the fictional North Africa nation of Wadiya, who gets accidentally deposed and replaced by a dazed and idiotic double (Baron Cohen again) on a trip to speak at the U.N.. To get back at his back-stabbing head of security (Ben Kingsley), he teams up with a dizzy activist health-food store manager (Anna Faris, still one of the funniest women in the movies today), despite her ungainly armpit hair and inexplicable compassion for oppressed refugees from brutal regimes. Videodrone's review is here.
"Defiance" (2008) dramatizes the real-life story of the Bielski brothers, Polish Jews who escaped the Nazi roundups and created a sanctuary for thousands of Jews in the Bellarussia forests during World War II. It was a passion project for director Edward Zwick and Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell star as Bielskis.
Not new but getting a lot of renewed interest is "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982), still the best "Star Trek" feature ever made, a pirate movie in space with an obsessed villain (wild-maned and bare-chested Ricardo Mantalban) and an impish Kirk. Director Nicholas Meyer brings a panache to the production and William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, and DeForest Kelley seem to have both gotten in touch with their characters and relationships all over again.
More recommendations at Videodrone
For more releases, see Hot Tips and Top Picks: DVDs, Blu-rays and streaming video for week of May 21
On feta and fidelity, long conversations and longer takes

Beginning with "Before Sunrise" and followed up by "Before Sunset," one of American independent cinema's milestones continues (or possibly concludes) with "Before Midnight." Reuniting director Rick Linklater with stars and co-writers Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, "Midnight" continues the intertwining lives of Jesse (Hawke) and Celine (Delpy.) The two met on a train in 'Sunrise," reunited in Paris in "Sunset" and now, in "Midnight" find themselves married with twins, in Greece on a writer's retreat, where the passage of time has made their conversations -- and their wounds -- all the deeper. We spoke with Linklater, Hawke and Delpy in Los Angeles about getting the band back together, why some women find Delpy's character "insufferable" and the horrible indignities of couple's massage.
MSN Movies: Let me just start by asking the obvious question, which is when exactly do you come upon the decision to say, "Let's get the band back together"?
Richard Linklater: You know it happened similarly now that we've done it twice. It was still this kind of six, seven year gap I think when we don't have .. as much as we would all like to work together, we're not going to do it just to do it, you know? We have to realize Jesse and Celine have something to say.
Julie Delpy: And we have something to say.
BING: More about Julie Delpy l BING: More about Ethan Hawke
Linklater: And we can't know that. I mean time is such a big player here, it has to be like six or seven more years of life accumulation. And then it's like Jesse and Celine, these parallel characters we've created, kind of emerge and kind of maybe have something to say about this new station they find themselves at. So that's how it's worked twice. We kind of have the same trajectory where we joke about it, there's funny titles thrown around ...
Delpy: (Laughs) "Before the Grave."
Linklater: Yeah before, you know, there's... But then at some point it gets a little more serious, then something of substance hits the table, and it takes on a slowly different tone. And we realized Jesse and Celine are sort of reemerging in a potentially real way, but it still takes awhile. That's at year six. And then we get two years of what-if this what-if that. And we get to use that luxury of the time we have to actually explore maybe what they have been doing for nine years.
Does it ever happen that two-thirds of the constituency are on board and one has to be cajoled or convinced? Or does everybody roughly sync up at the same time?
Seventh film set to go back to Los Angeles

The Coens finally make their return, and the Fortnight offers up its first stunner
Pictured: a cross-section of Croisette-facing promotional fanfare for Sony's "After Earth," Warner Brothers' "The Great Gatsby" and Disney/Pixar's "Monsters University."Guess what? It doesn't work
As someone who still binge-watches reruns of "Friends," it pains me to watch Jennifer Aniston's repeated failures at big screen comedy stardom, because while I know she can be funny in the right role, nothing she's been recently tasked with feature-wise has quite worked out for her or her skill set. Despite a string of cracks at comedy - including recent films like "The Switch," "Just Go With It," and "Wanderlust" - Aniston's success on the big screen is still shaky at best. Sure, she was funny in a bit part in "Horrible Bosses," and some of her past work (like "The Good Girl" and even a basic rom-com like "Picture Perfect") proves that she can lead a specific kind film, but that still hasn't translated to box office bonanza or a film that really clicks for the actress.Star takes a break to play ball with some kids (in costume!)
"I don’t know when we were told that we have to sacrifice story and character and acting and performances for the sake of action ..."

On a balcony overlooking a sprawling city, Vin Diesel is affable, laughing and a gracious host, wearing a crisp polo only slightly bluer than the sky. Diesel has managed to find a career path that mixes big, burly action films (like "Fast &Furious 6," as well as the upcoming "Riddick") and also managing to turn up in other films that have much more to do with brain than brawn ("The Iron Giant," Call Me Guilty"). We spoke with the man behind Dom Toretto in London, a quarter-mile at a time.
MSN Movies: How great is it to shoot driving action in London, one of the biggest, busiest cities in the world? It's pretty crazy, isn't it?
Vin Diesel: So, so crazy. If you would've asked me back in 1997 when I was here doing my first acting job, "Saving Private Ryan," that 15 years later I would be destroying the streets of London with a Dodge Daytona I would've thought you were crazy. And that's exactly what happened. We loved shooting in London, we loved the contrast to Rio, and we loved the idea that we, after Rio, after the fifth one ... we realized that the audience kind of enjoys traveling with us, going to new places. Somehow we've become their favorite tour guide.
(Laughs) Right.
Their favorite global tour guide, and we kind of try and live up to that ...
You see the world's great cities, and you destroy them, and you're kind of this anti-tourist advertisement.
Yeah, yeah. We leave rubble in our path.
And also, how great it is ... most of the time when you say to an audience, "Oh this is part six of a series," they're like, "Ugh." But this people look forward to. How fortunate is that? And what do you think explains it?
If we had continued the franchise in the way that we made the first three we would've gotten that reaction. When we came back for the second trilogy, (films) 4, 5, and 6, there was a very specific way that we changed the dynamic of making these movies. And that was, we no longer thought of it as a franchise where we make do whatever you want then slap the brand name on it and sell it. We thought of it as a continuing story, and you see that in the bookend style that we use. But we were very conscious about ... I know this sounds crazy, but almost rewarding the audience for the movie that they saw before.
BING: More on 'Vin Diesel l BING: More on 'Riddick'
And making the investment.
And making the investments. So if you saw 4 ... I mean, one of the executives at Universal thought they were really cute, they said, "On the poster for 'Fast Seven,' we're going to write, 'If you ain't seen 1 through 6, you ain't invited.''" (Laughs)
(Laughs) That's a bold statement.
Bruises, dream cars, chipped teeth and how the audience is the final ingredient ...

Considering that many of the "Fast and Furious" gang have been working together for up to a decade, it's got to be a trick to find the right actors to comfortably jump on board a vehicle that already has plenty of passengers and more than a little velocity. But this time, the new additions are perfect fits -- specifically, Luke Evans, who plays bad guy Shaw, and Gina Carano, the MMA-fighter and actress who plays Riley, the right-hand woman to Dwayne Johnson's hard-charging globo-cop Hobbs. We spoke with Evans and Carano in London about bad guys, fist-fights, fast cars and joining the party ...
MSN Movies: How great is it to come onboard a series where people are actually excited about a part six? That's pretty rare in Hollywood. By the time you get to part six it's usually lather, rinse, repeat. But your characters are a new shot to the arm of the series. How does it feel to enter this kind of weird film family of actors and creators?
Luke Evans: Well, you sort of answered the question really. It's a fantastic place. It's very rare to see a franchise in its sixth installment still creating a buzz ... but not just a buzz, the biggest buzz of the whole franchise. I mean they've built and built and built, and it's coming off the back of "Fast Five," which I thought was a fantastic movie. They've brought back the fantastic Justin Lin, the brilliant director who had an amazing idea, some crazy stunts, some ideas for cars, and wanted to bring a leading antagonist into the movie this time, an antagonist that wasn't just going to be helping the plot move along but actually was part of the story and the plot. And so yeah, and what is created is a new generation. This is a new, like you said, it's like a shot in the arm. They've added something to the mix.
But also he's created a film where, Ms. Carano, you get to do a 360-spin kick in the belly of a Russian cargo plane.
Gina Carano: Yeah.
I mean when you see that level of ambition, is it exciting on the page, never mind when you do it on the day?
Carano: It's just, it's fun. I get to play.
Yeah?
BING: More on Luke Evans l BING: More on Gina Carano
Carano: I mean that's a plane, and I get to do that, and experiment with my body and see where I can take it as far as action and other people's bodies. That sounds kind of strange, but, yeah. Violently.
We'll keep it in context.
Carano: (Laughs) Yes.
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