[030] January 17th – 2003 Sundance Film Festival – The Singing Detective Premiere
[004] January 19th – 4th Annual Instyle Post-Golden Globes Party
[007] January 19th – Focus Features Golden Globes After Party
[007] January 25th – 2003 Sundance Film Festival – Carla Gugino with the Cadillac Escalade
[004] January 25th – 2003 Sundance Film Festival – The Motorola and Air Party
[012] January 25th – 2003 Sundance Film Festival – The YAHOO! Movies Portrait Studio
[001] January 26th – 2003 Sundance Film Festival – Guess at Sundance
[004] February 9th – 33 Variations Opening Night
[211] March 4th – Elektra Luxx Los Angeles Premiere
[025] March 6th – 33 Variations Closing Night Reception
[090] March 7th – Girl Walks Into A Bar Los Angeles Premiere
[022] March 7th – Girl Walks Into A Bar Los Angeles Premiere – After Party
[026] March 11th – 2011 SXSW Music, Film + Interactive Festival – Girl Walks Into A Bar Premiere
[011] March 19th – Sucker Punch Press Conference
[124] March 23rd – Sucker Punch Los Angeles Premiere
[062] March 30th – Sucker Punch London Premiere
[006] March 30th – Sucker Punch London Premiere – After Party
[016] April 7th – The Planned Parenthood National Awards Gala
[004] April 11th – Scream 4 Los Angeles Premiere
[002] April 11th – Scream 4 Los Angeles Premiere – After Party
[020] April 28th – IWC Schaffhausen Presents Peter Lindbergh’s Portofino
Inspirational, true story of the original Cinderella in women’s basketball will open Oct. 21, 2011
Los Angeles, May 23, 2011 – Quaker Media, in association with Ocean Avenue Entertainment and The Maximus Group, has announced that The Mighty Macs, the inspirational underdog drama that captures the true story of the 1972 women’s college basketball championship, will open in theaters on Oct. 21, 2011. Set in suburban Philadelphia, The Mighty Macs features Carla Gugino (“Spy Kids,” “Race to Witch Mountain,” “Night at the Museum”), David Boreanz (Fox TV’s “Bones,” “Angel”), Marley Shelton (“Eleventh Hour,” “Pleasantville”)
and Academy Award®-winner Ellen Burstyn (Best Actress, “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore”). Burstyn is among an elite group of performers who has won the “Acting Triple Crown” – an Oscar®, an Emmy and a Tony.
The Mighty Macs recounts the original Cinderella story of women’s college basketball. It’s about faith, commitment and the triumph of the human spirit … about anyone who has ever had a dream.
New Haven’s Long Wharf Theatre is presenting a reading/workshop of a stage adaptation of William Styron’s “Sophie’s Choice.”
The work, staged by artistic director Gordon Edelstein, features Carla Gugino (Broadway’s “Desire Under the Elms,” “After the Fall” and off-Broadway’s “Suddenly Last Summer”), Oscar Isaac and(Off-Broadway’s “Grace,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “Beauty of the Father”), Bobby Steggert (Broadway’s “Ragtime,” “The Minister’s Wife”).
The adaptation is by David W. Rintels, who worked with the cooperation of Styron before his death in November, 2006. The project has the support of the Styron family, says Edelstein.
The adaptation is based ion the 1979 book which was made into the 1982 film by Alan J. Pakula starring Meryl Streep (who won an Oscar for her role), Kevin Kline as Nathan and Peter McNichol as Stingo.
Long Wharf Theatre will be announcing its 2011-12 season tonight.
[052] January 11th – Every Day Los Angeles Premiere
[029] January 14th – Showtime’s 2011 Winter TCA
[018] January 16th – 2011 InStyle/Warner Bros. Golden Globe Awards Party
[084] January 26th – The Rite Los Angeles Premiere
Have you ever watched a movie, thought to yourself “hey, that wasn’t bad” and then, not even an hour later, forgotten most of what you’ve seen? Elektra Luxx is one of those movies. And it’s a shame because the performances and characters are actually more than decent. Unfortunately, the story itself isn’t very interesting and, when all the parts come together, it just feels off.
A sequel to 2009′s Women in Trouble (also written and directed by Sebastian Gutierrez), Elektra Luxx takes place a few months after the events of the first film and features three different plots. The main story follows the title character, played once again by Carla Gugino, who has retired from the porn industry after finding out she was pregnant with now-deceased rock star Nick Chapel’s (played in the first by Josh Brolin, complete with lame British accent) baby. Instead of being a porn star, she is now teaching everyday women to be porn stars at a community center in her class “How to Be a Porn Star in Bed,” which I’m sure their husbands approve of.
After one of her classes, she is approached by Cora (Marley Shelton), the flight attendant in the first film who was the last to see Chapel alive. Cora has in her possession the lyrics to what would have been Chapel’s next album. It turns out that all the songs were about Elektra. Cora says she will give her the folder (no one uses flash drives in 2010?) if she seduces Cora’s husband and sleeps with him in order to wash away her guilt over cheating on him. Through some shenanigans, Elektra also ends up running into a private detective hired by the band to find those lyrics, played by Timothy Olyphant. And that’s just the BEGINNING of her story.
While that goes on, Elektra Luxx also focuses on porn stars/hookers to the rich Bambi (Emmanuelle Chriqui) and the dim-witted but lovable Holly Rocket (Adrianne Palicki, soon to be the next Wonder Woman). The two are vacationing in Mexico and while Bambi wants to do their usual thing of seducing rich guys, Holly just wants Bambi and fights to get the guts to tell her how she feels. And on top of those two stories, we also get the continuing saga of sex blogger Bert Rodriguez (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who is distraught over Elektra’s retirement and struggles to make it through the experience while also dealing with his wannabe pinup little sister and a potential love interest.
That’s a lot of story to balance in a 90-minute movie, rendering Elektra Luxx as merely passable when it could be so much more; the movie will shift from story to story at random intervals, taking the viewer out of one tale and into another too abruptly to elicit any real emotion or narrative interest. Elektra’s thread is the heart of the movie obviously, and Gugino knocks it out of the park as the both vulnerable and cocksure ex-porn star, but the situations that happen to, and around, her are over-the-top to the point of annoying, especially when it comes to a bizarre and wholly unnecessary cameo by Julianne Moore. It’s frustrating because Gugino is so good in the role, and Guitierrez doesn’t let her breath.
Holly and Bambi’s story is sweet, but nothing really happens. Holly pines for Bambi secretly and blah blah blah. I’m pretty sure you can guess how it works if you’ve watched a romantic comedy before. And once again, it’s a shame that the story is so dull because the two ladies are great, especially Palicki who makes her dumb porn star character Holly ridiculously adorable. I’ve never been a fan of her work, few people who’ve seen Legion would be, but she shows something here.
The highlight of the three stories has to be Bert Rodriguez. Though his part is the smallest, it’s the most lively and entertaining, and all the credit has to go to Gordon-Levitt. The guy is just fun to watch in everything and he continues it here; even though he’s barely featured, he has the funniest moments and the best lines and it almost feels like his parts have been inserted to break up the dullness of the other two on purpose, like the people involved knew they were going to lose the audience if they didn’t. Levitt can do no wrong at this point.
All in all, Elektra Luxx is a bit of a chaotic mess that fails because of exactly that. There’s too much going on too much of the time. There are three stories to pay attention to here, and without a good chunk of time to devote to all three in a real meaningful way, we seem to only get the duller parts. It’s a real shame too, because the cast is top notch and the characters are actually really likable. They would just be more likable if they had their own movies to shine in instead of having to fight for screen time.
In 2009, director Sebastian Gutierrez debuted a film called Women in Trouble at SXSW Film Festival. That film featured several women whose story-lines converged throughout the film, and it became a cult classic of sorts. Elektra Luxx is the sequel to that film, and features several returning cast members.
Carla Gugino plays the title character, who is newly retired from the porn industry. She’s also pregnant, and the baby daddy is recently deceased. What’s a single sex siren to do? Elektra shows some ingenuity and starts teaching some sex classes at the local community college for income. She struggles with insecurity about her pregnancy and the end of her career.
Things become further complicated when Elektra is visited by Cora (Marley Shelton), who has an unexpected and troubling connection to her deceased ex-boyfriend. Cora asks Elektra to seduce her fiance. In exchange, Cora will give Elektra a set of song lyrics that Elektra’s musician boyfriend wrote about Elektra. A madcap series of events ensues when Elektra seduces the wrong person.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a sex blogger who has taken Elektra’s retirement very, very hard. He records a documentary style history of Elektra’s career in his mother’s basement.
There is also a storyline about two porn actresses (and friends) who are on a vacation in Mexico together. Holly Rocket (Adrianne Palicki) decides this is the perfect opportunity to tell her friend Bambi (Emmanuelle Chriqui) that she is in love with her.
The film bounces back and forth between these storylines, and it never feels like a cohesive narrative. I can appreciate that Gutierrez threw in a few random vignettes, but that is exactly what the whole film feels like-a series of shorts or vignettes shown in random order. Julianne Moore appears as the Virgin Mary in one scene that left me scratching my head.
The film has a distinctly retro feel to it, and Gutierezz employs dream sequences, flashbacks, and black and white scenes to tell the story. This results in a film that feels disjointed at best. I am curious if viewing Women in Trouble would have altered my perception of the film.
Elektra Luxx has a really amazing cast, particularly for a low-budget film. Gugino is wonderful and lovely, as usual. Gordon-Levitt is a treat as the blogger. Timothy Olyphont, Malin Ackerman, Julianne Moore, Justin Kirk, and Kathleen Quinlan all appear in the film as well.
The talented cast elevates the material; it would be easy to write off the film if not for the actors. Though I didn’t love the film, I would marginally recommend it for its innovative approach to story telling. You can view the trailer below.
Rating 2.5/5 Elektra Luxx is rated R. Directed by Sebastian Gutierrez. Starring Carla Gugino, Timothy Olyphont, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Justin Kirk, Malin Ackerman, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Marley Shelton, Adrianne Palicki.
Elektra Luxx follows its title character, first introduced by writer/director Sebastian Gutierrez in 2009’s Women in Trouble, who is now a retired porn superstar, trying to cope with impending motherhood while coming to terms with the death of the baby’s father and her split from the porn world. Even though Elektra Luxx (Carla Gugino) is trying to live a quieter life, reinventing herself as a sex education instructor at her local community center, she quickly ends up entangled with a flight attendant (Marley Shelton) looking to have her fiancé seduced, an attractive private detective (Timothy Olyphant) who proves to be quite appealing, an over-eager sex blogger (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) who’s obsessed with her, a best-selling author (Kathleen Quinlan) looking to turn her life into a novel, and even the Virgin Mary (Julianne Moore) herself.
During the film’s press day, actress Carla Gugino did this exclusive interview with Collider and talked about the appeal of this rather unusual character, how much she enjoyed getting to revisit Elektra Luxx, and the challenge of shooting a film in 15 days. She also talked about how getting to see the final visuals of Sucker Punch (in theaters on March 25th) was like seeing the story brought to life for the first time, being part of the ensemble of the Garry Marshall film New Year’s Eve, and playing really strong women on both Entourage and Californication. Check out what she had to say after the jump.
Since this is the second time you’re taking on this role, how did you originally get involved with this and what was it about Elektra Luxx that made you want to play her?CARLA GUGINO: Basically, Sebastian Gutierrez, who wrote it and directed it, had this idea. He had a scene from a movie that hadn’t gotten made and he thought, “Maybe I could make a short film of this.” And then, he thought, “Or, I could string 10 of these together and make a full-length feature, but do it in 10 days.” So, he gave me the script and said, “I wrote this character with you in mind. She’s a porn star. But, she’s a porn star who finds out she’s pregnant and, ultimately, is deciding whether to have the baby or not.” He went on with this whole thing and I was like, “She sounds like the best character, ever!”
And then, we started compiling a cast of amazing actors, most of whom one or both of us knew, and just did this experiment. While we were probably half-way through the shoot, which was obviously very short, we thought, “Oh, there is so much more to do with these characters.” Sebastian said, “Yeah, I’m feeling like we should do a trilogy. Only huge movies usually do trilogies, so why don’t we do a trilogy of this great little character piece.” That’s how it all came about.
Sucker Punch: The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack will be hitting stores on March 28, with a host of classic songs that have been wildly reimagined by Björk and others…
Zack Snyder describes the movie Sony soundtrack as “Alice In Wonderland with machine guns” has taken over two years to create. Songs include Eurythmics, Roxy Music, The Smiths and The Beatles. Full track list is below.
Marius de Vries (Grammy-nominated composer & music director) and composer Tyler Bates (300/Watchmen) with Snyder, selected the songs featured on the soundtrack, which will play an integral role in the movie.
“Working with Marius and re-teaming with Tyler on Sucker Punch’s soundtrack was an extraordinary experience.”
“Sucker Punch is a film created with multiple levels of reality, so this same layered construct had to be considered and applied when approaching the music.”
“The selection of songs we chose and the various ways in which they were each re-envisioned had to add depth, dimension and meaning to the sequences they exist within. Marius and Tyler did an amazing job creating an intricate musical landscape to accompany the surreal imagery of the film.”
Sony:
“Intense, sexy, edgy and highly imaginative, these new and unrestrained arrangements of legendary songs, along with the original mash up of Queen’s I Want It All/We Will Rock You featuring Armageddon Aka Geddy (Terror Squad), are the backbone of the film driving the relationship between the motives of the characters and the lengths they are willing to go for survival.”
Track Listing:
1. Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of This) – Emily Browning
2. Army Of Me (Sucker Punch Remix) – Björk featuring Skunk Anansie
3. White Rabbit – Emiliana Torrini
4. I Want It All/We Will Rock You Mash-Up – Queen with Armageddon Aka Geddy
5. Search And Destroy – Skunk Anansie
6. Tomorrow Never Knows – Alison Mosshart and Carla Azar
7. Where Is My Mind? – Yoav featuring Emily Browning
8. Asleep – Emily Browning
9. Love Is The Drug – Carla Gugino and Oscar Isaac
Race to Witch Mountain (2009)
Watchmen (2009)
The Unborn (2009)
Righteous Kill (2008)
Our Lady of Victory (2008)
