According to the movies high school is made up of a few, very specific characters. There’s the good-looking jock whose life isn’t nearly as rosy off field as it is on. The standard issue mean girl with an attitude and feathered hair, the supportive best friends and the outsider who discovers they’re more of an insider than they ever could have imagined.
Based on the book by Kody Keplinger, “The Duff” mixes and matches these stereotypes, shaking things up just enough to keep things interesting… at least until recess.
“Parenthood’s” Mae Whitman is Bianca, a senior whose idea of a good time is taking in a horror movie marathon and hanging with BFFs Jess and Casey (Skyler Samuels & Bianca Santos). Her happy life is turned upside down, though, when the best looking guy in school, Wes (Robbie Amell), informs her that she is a DUFF, the Designated Ugly Fat Friend. As the gatekeeper to her prettier friends she is the approachable one who boys befriend to get closer to Jess and Casey. The news drives a wedge in her friendship with the girls, forcing her to turn to Wes to reverse-DUFF her. In her mom’s (Allison Janney) words when she gets proactive her problems get subtractive. Wes builds her confidence and soon a date with the boy of her dreams (Nick Eversman) teaches her an important lesson about the place of DUFFs in the world.
“The Duff” is a typical teen comedy, sprinkled with some funny lines—when the school institutes a cell phone ban one student complains, “I just thought of something funny and now no one will know!”—the usual examination of the all-important school social hierarchy and for the first half of the running time it works well in a low-to-no expectations kind of way.
Elevating “The Duff” from a C- to a B is Mae Whitman. Funny and charismatic she has a Bette Midler-esque way with a joke and enough pathos to make you care about her teenage crush. She delivers the movie’s best lines and, not surprisingly, has the best delivery of anyone in the film. Hopefully next time out she’ll graduate from high school shenanigans to more grown-up material.
“The Duff” is “Mean Girls Lite,” a school comedy so predictable the screenwriters should be sent to the principal’s office but with a central performance worth skipping last period for.
The name Tommy Tedesco is likely unfamiliar to you, but if you have played air guitar sometime in the last fifty years, chances are you have mimed to at least one of his guitar licks.
Tedesco was one of the guitar players of an unofficial group of musicians known as the Wrecking Crew, the session band who played on records by everyone from the Byrds to Cher and Nancy and Frank Sinatra to the Beach Boys, the Monkees, and Captain and Tennille.
In “Wrecking Crew” Tedesco’s son, filmmaker Denny Tedesco, has brought together many of the anonymous west coast players who provided much of the back beat of the 1960s and 70s.
It’s a personal project for Denny who spends a great deal of time reminiscing about his dad. We learn about how his father became the most recorded guitar player in history, some personal and studio stories and there is even a clip of Tommy on “The Gong Show,” wearing a pink tutu singing his satirical song “Requiem For A Studio Guitar Player.” “I used to be number one / Did all the work in this town / In the Fifties I was something / In the Sixties I was king / Now the Seventies come around and I will do anything…” It’s a funny moment that really speaks to the big picture story of The Wrecking Crew. They were the kings and queens of the Los Angeles music scene, hitmakers who worked round the clock and became millionaires until the work dried up as the singer-songwriter phase of the 1970s took hold.
Tedesco doesn’t focus on the post 70s careers of the players. Light and breezy, “Wrecking Crew” is as frothy as the music it details but he does mine some interesting biographical details about musicians like Hal Blaine, the genius drummer who went from millionaire to security guitar to working musician again, Carol Kaye, the lone female member of the band and Earl Palmer, a jazz drummer who played with everyone from Count Basie to Little Richard.
“Wrecking Crew” is a heartfelt and interesting peak into an unexplored part of our collective musical history and it has a good beat and you can dance to it.
For Canadian actor Robbie Amell his latest starring role was all about chemistry. To make sure he had the kind of spark needed to play opposite potential The DUFF co-star Mae Whitman he not only had to audition, he then had to try out again at a “chemistry read.”
“They narrowed it down to a few guys,” says the youthful looking twenty-seven year old. “They had signed Mae and they brought us in one after the other. Before I went in my best friend Nick, who’s very funny, and I sat down and figured out some alternate lines. I thought I’d have a shot at this if I could make her laugh.”
Preparation aside, he says for Whitman, fresh off a stint on Parenthood, it wasn’t love at first sight.
“Mae didn’t want to drive in for the chemistry read,” he says. “She was already sour and she said she was not excited. I walk in and she said, ‘Screw this guy.’ But I dropped some really rude improv line on her and she totally busted out laughing. I think that was the turning point.”
Then it was a waiting game. “My chemistry read was at 11 on a Friday morning,” he says, “which means there is nothing else I am thinking about for the next couple of days. It slowly started to disappear and it got to a point where I thought, ‘If I’m the guy, great. If I’m not the guy, I’m not. I just want to know.’”
Two weeks later he had the part of Wes, the best looking guy in Bianca’s (Whitman) school, who informs her that she is a DUFF, the Designated Ugly Fat Friend. He tells her she is the gatekeeper; the approachable one boys befriend to get closer to her prettier friends.
The all-important high school social hierarchy is the backbone of the story. Bianca and Wes are at opposite ends of the ecosystem, but Amell explains, “the movie is about knocking down these labels, embracing what makes you, you.”
Amell, who in real life graduated from Toronto’s Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute in 2006, says his school experience was very different than the one depicted in the movie.
“I didn’t have great skin in high school so that was kind of my DUFF moment but I always joke around that I grew up in Canada and everyone is polite so no one would call anyone the DUFF.
“I went to high school not that long ago but not every kid had a camera in their hand. Now everything is so documented you can’t get away with anything. It sucks. I don’t know if I could be an actor if there were camera phones when I went to high school. Everybody makes mistakes and you should be allowed to make a few without them being documented in HD.”
Jim and Cheryl White have seen the movie McFarland three times and teared up every at every viewing, even though, he says, “we knew what was going to happen.”
The film, which stars Kevin Costner as the most successful Californian high school cross-country coach in history, is the story of White, his wife and their life and work in McFarland, California, an impoverished town transformed by sports.
The Texas native taught in McFarland for forty years, establishing a cross-country running team that would win nine state championships and give the runners a glimpse of life outside their small town and nearby fields where many of them worked as migrant “pickers.”
His success may have earned him a Hollywood biopic and a more permanent tribute in the form of a dedicated gazebo in the town square but he sees his influence in more metaphysical terms.
“To me my legacy is in the hearts and minds of these boys I’ve taught.”
In person White is a humble man who quietly commands respect. At a post screening Q&A I hosted with him in Toronto he earned a standing ovation before even saying a word. As the audience clapped he was genuinely moved, and with a quivering voice whispered to me to, “take over for a second.”
Earlier in the day we discussed seeing his life played out on the big screen. “We just hoped they could portray our true feelings of love for the town; for the community. That came across real well. We also felt like they portrayed the true hardships these boys went through.”
Hollywood did make some changes to White’s story and one scene in particular irked him. When we first see White in the film he’s hurling a cleated shoe at the lippy captain of his Idaho school football team, opening the kid’s cheek.
“That is dramatic licence,” he says. “It bothered me for a while but I talked to Kevin Costner about it. I said, ‘Kevin, can you give me your true feelings about the situation that happened in Idaho?’ He said, ‘I think, Jim, you’re going to come across as the hero and not the villain because you’re standing up for what’s right.’ I said, ‘All right and I was satisfied with that.’”
White often uses the phrase “well, that’s Hollywood for you,” when describing the making of the film and the liberties taken with his life’s story but now that the movie is finished he says, “What was really fascinating to both us was watching the screen and seeing them say, ‘Mr. White would you come in here…’ Jim White this, and Cheryl White that. We’re sitting there looking at ourselves up there. It was kind of funny.”
Anna Kendrick is perhaps best known for her break out role as the ambitious Human Resources person in Up in the Air who suggests conducting layoffs via videoconferencing to save money. Her performance opposite George Clooney created a stir at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, and now she’s back at TIFF with a much different movie.
The Last Five Years is a musical based on Jason Robert Brown’s Off-Broadway hit of same name. It’s the story of the five-year relationship between actress Cathy and her novelist husband Jamie, played by Smash star Jeremy Jordan. It’s told from two different perspectives. Her storyline begins with the breakdown of the relationship. His starts at the beginning (it’s a very good place to start, as they say in musical theatre) as they court and eventually marry.
Kendrick, last sang on screen in Pitch Perfect and will soon be seen as Cinderella in the much anticipated movie version of Into the Woods, says the decision to sing live in front of the cameras, instead of prerecording in studio, aided her performance of the complex role.
“Doing it live was something we wanted to do whenever possible,” she says. “We didn’t want to make a point of it or be precious about it because it was equally important for us to be visually dynamic and change locations and be outside occasionally. I thought I would feel that the pre-recorded days would be a breeze, but it was so much easier to act the songs live because you weren’t retroactively going, ‘Oh yeah, that’s how I was playing that in the recording booth four weeks ago.’ So doing it live was a physical challenge, because, you know, it’s your voice, but it was so much easier to be present and honest and all that with singing live.”
Kendrick plays a struggling actress and in one memorable scene details the pain of auditioning for roles. In the Climbing Uphill sequence she sings, “I’m up ev’ry morning at six, And standing in line, With two hundred girls who are younger and thinner than me.” It;’s a feeling Kendrick says she knows well.
“It’s a competitive business by nature,” she says. “I know that room and that line of two hundred girls. I didn’t have to dig all that deep to know the anxiety and self-doubt. That was a fun thing to perform and see inside her head and talk about the indignity of not being paid attention to when you are trying to perform for somebody.”
Even though she is a Tony nominee for her work on Broadway in High Society and has starred in high profile films like Twilight and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World she says she still auditions.
“If there is something really incredible everybody wants it so I audition,” she says. I see friends of mine and we’re all in business suits and then at the next one we’re all in leather jackets. I’m like, ‘Yeah, this is so embarrassing.’ But that is the grind.”
Richard interviews Anna Kendrick on “The Last Five Years”
“If there is something really incredible everybody wants it so I audition. It’s a competative business by nature. I know that room and that line of two hundred girls. I didn’t have to dig all that deep to know the anixiety and self doubt. Obviously it was a lot more fun to be working on a movie where I’m doing that and not going home and crying into my pillow. That was a fun thing to perform and see inside her head and talk about the indignity of not being paid attention to when you are trying to perform for somebody.”
“I see friends of mine and we’re all in business suits and then at the next one we’re all in leather jackets. I’m like, ‘Yeah, this is so embarrassing.’ But that is the grind.”
Jerry Hickfang is an animal over and like many animal lovers he talks to his pets, his dog Bosco and cat, Mr. Whiskers. Trouble is, they talk back.
Ryan Reynolds is the wholesome looking Jerry, a worker at the Milton Bathtub Factory. He’s young, good-looking and eager to please at work. He also has a crush on Fiona (Gemma Arterton), the cute accountant in the office upstairs. They make a date, she stands him up and soon we learn that Jerry has some serious mental problems and an aversion to taking his meds. More likely to listen to the ramblings of Bosco and Mr. Whiskers than his therapist (Jacki Weaver), the bodies start to pile up as Jerry grapples with the voices that tell him to do terrible things.
Kitschy, strange and decidedly off kilter, “The Voices” takes a one joke premise—a guy’s pets are the angel and devil perched on his shoulder—and wrings it dry. There are some funny moments—witness Bosco and Mr. Whiskers getting turned-on while watching a National Geographic (emphasis on the “graphic”) animal special on TV—but mostly the movie revolves around Reynolds’s winning performance.
He’s a likeable actor using his likeability to emphasize the darkness that is slowly enveloping Jerry. It’s a good, brave performance that is the bridge between the horror and comedy elements of the story.
In many ways “The Voices” defines quirky indie cinema, but when the color palette changes from Day-Glo pink in the early scenes to dark colours—both physiologically and physically—in the later scenes, the movie deepens. It’s still shocking right through to the end, but the shudders are tempered with insightful comments on the human condition, and surprisingly, a dance number.
Richard reviews “Fifty Shades of Frey,” “Kinsmen: the Secret Service,” “The Last Five Years” and “What We Do in the Shadows” with “Canada AM” host Marci Ien.
Jennifer Lawrence once showed me a cell phone snap of herself dressed in a fierce black leather outfit.
She was hot off the success of her Oscar nominated work in Winter’s Bone and used the photo as part of her audition for a role that every actress of a certain age in Hollywood clamoured for in 2010.
She didn’t get the part of Lisbeth Salander, the pierced and inked computer hacker star of David Fincher’s remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo—the producers thought she was too tall—Rooney Mara did, but not before auditioning five times and beating out better known hopefuls like Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Anne Hathaway.
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was 2011’s big literary adaptation, ripe with star making possibilities and lucrative franchise potential. It didn’t pan out that way but Hollywood hasn’t given up on bringing bestsellers to the screen.
This week there are high hopes for Fifty Shades of Grey. Calling the story of college graduate Anastasia Steele and BDSM enthusiast Christian Grey a “literary” adaptation might be a stretch, but with 100 million books sold (including parts two and three) there are great expectations.
So, actors should be crawling over one another to star in the film, right? Think again. Unlike Dragon Tattoo, young Hollywood has not exactly been whipping themselves into a frenzy over Fifty Shades. Shailene Woodley apparently had no qualms about performing the film’s explicit bondage scenes, but was already tied up making the Divergent movies.
Emma Watson did have qualms. “Who here actually thinks I would do Fifty Shades of Grey as a movie?” she wrote on twitter.
In the end Dakota Johnson, better known as the daughter of Don Johnson and Melanie Griffith than for her work on the cancelled sitcom Ben and Kate, won the role and while it might make her a star there are dangers involved with a project like this. Just ask Elizabeth Berkley.
Berkley was a wholesome teen model and star of the sit com Saved by the Bell when a role in Paul Verhoeven’s 1995 sexploitation flick Showgirls left her career in tatters. As the untested star who bared her soul and body in a big budget film she took the hit for the film’s failure.
Almost twenty-years later she was still emotional about the backlash she suffered. After a performing an erotic dance on Dancing with the Stars she tearfully said, “it reconnected me to when I was just a young woman and took a risk creatively and did Showgirls. With that came a lot of doors being slammed in my face.”
Will Johnson be the next Berkley? According to ticket-selling site Fandango Fifty Shades of Grey is the fastest selling R-rated title ever, so Dakota may yet be spared a tearful breakdown in Dancing with the Stars in 2035.
According to the movies high school is made up of a few, very specific characters. There’s the good-looking jock whose life isn’t nearly as rosy off field as it is on. The standard issue mean girl with an attitude and feathered hair, the supportive best friends and the outsider who discovers they’re more of an insider than they ever could have imagined.
