Home Media Magazine - March 16-22, 2009 - (Page 14) PIPELINE Edited by Billy Gil www.homemediamagazine.com Kristen Stewart Has Her ‘Cake’ The ‘Twilight’ girl stars in Screen Media’s ‘The Cake Eaters’ By Billy Gil risten Stewart has had more than her fair share of unwanted publicity in the past four months since Twilight hit theaters: Did she and co-star Robert Pattinson TALENT date? And what’s the deal with that TALK Nylon interview that got Twilight fans in such a twitter (or Twittering, rather)? Home Media Magazine just wanted to talk to Stewart about her new film The Cake Eaters, coming to DVD March 24 at $22.98, from Screen Media and Universal Studios Home Entertainment, the directorial debut of actress Mary Stuart Masterson (a role model, Stewart says) in which Stewart stars as terminally ill Georgia Kaminski, who falls in love with a boy named Beagle. And, OK, a little bit about Twilight … K The Cake Eaters Moon, I’ll be doing this movie called The Runaways. I’m going to be playing Joan Jett. That’s going to be a big rehearsal process. I mean I can play guitar, but I can play guitar like how I play guitar, I can’t play guitar how she does. She’s quite distinct. And Dakota Fanning (who co-stars in New Moon) just signed on. This movie makes me vibrate, I’m so excited. I have the same feeling before any movie I do. I have like a sense of responsibility. … But this is really just like the coolest, most fun project I’ve ever had anything to do with. Mine are usually much heavier. And it’s a heavy movie, but at the same time, it’s just f*cking cool. I HM: This is another beloved person or character you’re portraying (in addition to Twilight’s Bella). Do you look for that kind of challenge? I HM: Was the role of Georgia one of the more challenging roles you’ve played? the-week movie. It’s a very real story about and do what makes you happy. At the same time, the really remarkable thing Stewart: Yeah, not just because of the physical two families that are sort of involved with one another. about this character is that she’s in a position feat. You can kind of make your best impreswhere everyone around her is inflicting their sion … but you can’t even remotely know what I HM: What did The Cake Eaters mean to you? it’s like for them. Definitely it was one of the Stewart: You have a group of people who are own negative ideas about how her life might harder roles just because it’s sad; it’s difficult to facing immense loss and grief. They still find it be, but she’s perfectly fine. She has come to think about something like that for a month. in themselves to be courageous enough to fall in terms with it, and she doesn’t even resent the I HM: We can’t ignore you have a legion of fans in love. … It’s about living in the moment, even if people around her for being negative about her part spurred by Twilight. What can they expect out of everything around you seems like it just sucks. life. She’s like at 15 what she would be like at 30. These kids really do live an accelI HM: It has some similarities to Twilight, The Cake Eaters? erated version of life because they’re Stewart: It’s very different, but it’s still a very when you bear it down to its core of two very much stuck in their own heads, character-driven movie. I feel like Twilight, people falling in love against tough odds. so they have a lot of time to come to even though it’s this big movie, I still feel like Stewart: I didn’t think about it while terms with sh*t, you know? there’s a quaintness about it, and Cake Eat- accepting the role, ers has that as well. They shouldn’t expect a but … most writI HM: Can you talk about the Twiromp. … It’s a family drama about a girl who ten dramatic love light sequel New Moon and has astounding, baffling strength. It’s not at stories are typically in the face of some of your other projects? all preachy. It’s not your typical disease-of- adversity. You just have to be selfish Stewart: Right after New Stewart: I definitely look for things that I have to dig deep for, but before I did Twilight, I knew that it had a devoted fanbase, but I thought it was rather exclusive. I didn’t think it was so vast. I subsequently found out what a big deal this part was, and that I was in control of a lot of people’s emotional states Nov. 21. That really affected me. I cared, I didn’t want it to just blow up in my face. But the Joan thing is sort of undeniable. Any time you play a real person — or even in the case of The Cake Eaters — any time you play something that’s so personally real for someone, and you don’t know anything about it, and you’re just stepping in, just, like, oh, I’m the actor who’s going to play you, you have to take it more seriously. You’re not creating an original work of art, you’re trying to do justice to something that is more important than you being an actor. So I don’t look for it, but I do like it. It’s a challenge. Thora Birch Plays a Killer in ‘Winter of Frozen Dreams’ By Billy Gil ctress Thora Birch has carved a place for herself in film by moving from child star — in such films as Hocus Pocus and Now and Then — to playing troubled young TALENT women in dark comedies TALK American Beauty and Ghost World. Her latest role is as convicted murderer Barbara Hoffman in the true-crime drama Winter of Frozen Dreams, out May 5 (prebook April 7) at $26.95 from Monterey Video. Based on the book Winter of Frozen Dreams: The True Story of Passion, Greed and Murder in Madison, Wisconsin, by Karl Harter, the film tells the story of Hoffman, a biochemistry student and a prostitute. Hoffman was convicted of the murder of one man and tried for the murder of another — both BRIEFS I CULT-FAVORITE ‘FANBOYS’ ON DVD MAY 19 The long-awaited geekfest film Fanboys finally heads to DVD May 19 (prebook April 4) from Genius Products and The Weinstein Co. The road-trip movie tells the story of a group of “Star Wars” fans who, in 1998, decide to break into George Lucas’ Skywalker ranch to steal an early print of Episode I. Fanboys had been slated for a February 2008 theatrical release but was put on hold for reshoots, inspiring an Internet movement when it was learned the film was being edited by the studio. It eventually hit theaters in February 2009 and earned about $500,000 in limited release. The $19.97 DVD includes cast and crew commentary, deleted scenes, and several making-of featurettes. – John Latchem men were her clients, and both left her money in their wills. Hoffman denied murdering the two men and has since remained silent on the matter. “The book is very detailed and very good,” Birch said of researching the role of Hoffman. “The most helpful thing was her silence in and of itself. To me that said a lot about her and where she was coming from.” Birch welcomed the challenge of portraying Hoffman and does so in an appropriately complex manner: calm, collected and with a wicked smile and sense of humor. “I thought it would be a great challenge because I had no idea what I was doing,” Birch said. “As an actor, that’s what I respond to the most. If some- Winter of Frozen Dreams thing seems impossible, that’s pretty much what I’m going to want to do.” Birch said she felt sympathy for Hoffman, who is portrayed in the film as ambiguously guilty but also a misunderstood woman for her time and surroundings. “I don’t know the ins and outs, and [no one knows] for sure what happened,” Birch said. “But there are some strong fact-guided speculations. … I can’t say for myself this is what happened but … I think if Barbara Hoffman was the same Barbara Hoffman going to school now, her life would be a little different because there are more opportunities for super scary smart women now than there were in the middle ’70s. “If she was a victim of anything, she was a victim of her time. … She was someone psychologists like to study in that she was an insanely intelligent person that made really dumb decisions.” Home Media Magazine March 16–22, 2009 http://www.homemediamagazine.com
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