Blog Posts by Vera H-C Chan

  • Race controversy over ‘The Hunger Games’

    By Vera H-C Chan | Movie Talk – Tue, Mar 27, 2012 2:27 PM EDT

    Lenny Kravitz (left) as Cinna and Amandla Sternberg as Rue (right)Any adaptation from book to movie is bound to rile up fans. The casting of black actors in "The Hunger Games" has spurred some negative tweets -- even though at least two are true to Suzanne Collins's 2008 book.

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  • Fan-Made Poster Imagines Ryan Gosling as ‘Walt’

    By Vera H-C Chan | Movie Talk – Tue, Mar 13, 2012 3:54 PM EDT

    'Walt' PosterPoster created by Pascal WitaszekFirst, the French won this year's Oscars. Now they're telling Americans what movies to make. Quel toupet!

    Not that Paris-based graphic artist Pascal Witaszek hasn't come up with a bonne idée, especially now that Hollywood is awash in nostalgia about its own past. The pitch: a biopic about Walt Disney. Over the weekend, the Parisian dreamer uploaded a what-if movie poster, featuring a mustachioed Ryan Gosling hunched over a notepad, perched on a pink velvet train seat while scenic grasslands and puffy clouds rush by. (And if you squint not that hard at the puffy clouds, you'll spot a very famous mouse.)

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  • Brad Pitt on Marriage, ‘Moneyball,’ and Misery

    By Vera H-C Chan | Coverage of The 84th Annual Academy Awards® – Wed, Jan 25, 2012 8:21 PM EST

    Cover courtesy of The Hollywood ReporterBrad Pitt has been mighty chatty lately, what with a lengthy Entertainment Weekly interview in September and now a one-on-one with the Hollywood Reporter. As Pitt faces 50 in less than two years, the Oscar-nominated actor has become more sanguine about opening up--and when he opens up, eye-opening details come pouring out about marriage, "Moneyball," and misery.

    Pitt has actually brought up marriage talk with his famous partner of seven years, Angelina Jolie. Pitt dropped hints to Ellen DeGeneres and USA Today in September. "We'd actually like to," he tells the Hollywood Reporter, "and it seems to mean more and more to our kids. We made this declaration some time ago that we weren't going to do it 'til everyone can. But I don't think we'll be able to hold out. It means so much to my kids ... and it means something to me, too, to make that kind of commitment."

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  • The Misery of Brad Pitt

    By Vera H-C Chan | Movie Talk – Thu, Sep 15, 2011 7:55 PM EDT

    Photo: 20th Century Fox/Everett CollectionThe first role that Brad Pitt won an award for, he hated.

    Maybe hate is a strong word, but Pitt describes his experience as the brooding, self-loathing Louis de Pointe du Lac in the 1994 film "Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles," as "miserable." In a nicely self-deprecating cover story for the September 23 Entertainment Weekly issue, the actor recalls his "six months in the (expletive) dark" wearing contact lenses, makeup, and playing second fiddle to star Tom Cruise both onscreen and off. (Cruise played the vampire Lestat.) "I'm telling you, one day it broke me," Pitt tells EW, and confesses he called friend and producer David Geffen to see how much it would cost to get out. The sobering answer: $40 million. "I was like, 'I've got to man up and ride through this....'"

    Vampire model
    One upside: Pitt got introduced to New Orleans, which would later become his adopted hometown that he would help to rebuild. And, miserable or not, a depressed vampire is still bragging

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