To see the conversation between Fox and Thompson — and why Fox got Thompson all choked up — watch the exclusive EW.com video below. And pick up our Reunions issue (on newsstands now) for chats and photos with the casts of The Lord of the Rings, Alias, The West Wing, Scream, Pretty in Pink, and more.
Ron Batzdorff/Fox Searchlight PicturesHilary Swank as a sister pursuing truth in “Conviction.” For a while “Conviction,” based on the true story of a New England woman’s long struggle to win freedom for her imprisoned brother, feels as if it just might escape the stifling conventions of the crusader-for-justice melodrama. The film, directed by Tony Goldwyn from a script by Pamela Gray, starts in a chronological scramble: the lives of the characters have been shattered, and the filmmakers are sorting through the shards, offering us painful glimpses of adult anxiety and childhood pain.
There is a dead body in a mobile home, its rooms eerily quiet after a bloody struggle. And then there are Betty Anne and Kenny Waters at various stages of growing up, most heart-rendingly as the young children (played by Bailee Madison and Tobias Campbell) of a damaged, neglectful mother, left largely to their own devices and then separated in foster care. They also have a lot of fun, albeit of an antisocial variety — stealing candy from the supermarket and sneaking into empty houses to eat it, for example — and their youthful outlaw bond goes a long way toward explaining the intensity of Betty Anne’s loyalty later on.
There is another scene, once the siblings have grown up into Sam Rockwell and Hilary Swank, that captures the film’s early, promising mixture of blunt drama and psychological subtlety. Betty Anne, newly engaged, is out drinking with her fiancé (Loren Dean), Kenny and his wife, Brenda (Clea DuVall). Kenny is horsing around on the dance floor with his young daughter, who is just a toddler. He seems to be the clownish life of the party until somebody says the wrong thing. There is a fight — Kenny knocks a man out, bloodying his face — and then the party resumes, with Kenny doing an impromptu striptease and making everybody laugh again.
Mr. Rockwell excels at this kind of volatility — at playing men who are angry, charming and foolish all at once. And Kenny is a fascinating puzzle, someone who does not seem entirely incapable of murder. When he is arrested, thanks to the zeal of a grim-faced police officer (Melissa Leo), he takes it almost as a joke, but before he knows it, the damning testimony of his wife (and a wayward lover played with blowsy relish by Juliette Lewis) leads to his conviction and life sentence.
The movie, at that point, goes into lockdown, as the talents of a number of superb actors are stifled by an airless, by-the-numbers story. The intriguing question of Kenny’s character — not his guilt or innocence, but the quicksilver temperament that makes both seem plausible — fades as the story of Betty Anne’s hard work and sacrifice gains momentum. And Ms. Swank’s performance shrinks in scope as her character’s monomaniacal devotion to freeing Kenny takes over the movie.
Betty Anne pushes through college and law school while working at a bar and rearing two sons (Owen Campbell and Conor Donovan). Her family life suffers, and her marriage falls apart, as often happens to movie heroes who embrace a long-shot, righteous cause.
Bill O’Reilly used his “Talking Points Memo” on The O’Reilly Factor on Thursday night to replay the segment on The View that led Joy Behar and Whoopi Goldberg to walk off the set. On The Factor, O’Reilly referred to it as a “fiery debate.” Later in the show, noting his condescending directive to Behar — “Listen to me because you’ll learn” — O’Reilly said, “She was yapping so I had to get her attention… I am often offensive, I think everyone knows that.”
Goldberg and Behar objected to O’Reilly’s blanket condemnation of “Muslims” attacking America on Sept.11, as opposed to phrasing it as “Muslim extremists.” O’Reilly’s “Memo” included this point: “No one I know wants to insult Muslims, but many are tired of the political correctness surrounding the 9/11 attack.” His example: “Did we say, in World War II, ‘We were attacked by “Japanese extremists”? [...] No: we said we were attacked by ‘Japanese.’”
Laura Ingraham joined O’Reilly to go after The View. “Who gave Joy Behar the badge [of] speech police officer?” Ingraham said. She described Goldberg and Behar’s counter-arguments as “an attempt to intimidate others.” Huh? Intimidate who? Those poor View watchers who are so easily intimidated? Pretty condescending of Ingraham.
On her Headline News channel show this evening, host Behar explained her walk-off by saying, “I thought he was saying something that I construe as hate speech, frankly.” Her guest was former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, who called O’Reilly “a spineless puke.” Ventura’s insult was rather sour-graped, however, by his admission that “the whole Fox [network] won’t have me on.” Sounds like someone has had his feelings hurt by not getting a perfumed invitation from O’Reilly or Glenn Beck…
What do you think of the controversy? And how much longer will it be drawn out?
Image Credit: Ray Tamarra/Getty ImagesJust when the controversy over the forthcoming Ron Howard comedy The Dilemma seemed to have faded away, the hullabaloo over the movie’s “gay gag” has flared up again, courtesy of the actor who gives voice to the offending line, Vince Vaughn. In a statement released to the media, the Wedding Crashers and Swingers star says: “Let me add my voice of support to the people outraged by the bullying and persecution of people for their differences, whatever those differences may be. Comedy and joking about our differences breaks tension and brings us together. Drawing dividing lines over what we can and cannot joke about does exactly that; it divides us. Most importantly, where does it stop.”
Vaughn’s selectively worded statement makes conspicuous use of pop culture’s hot “B” word (“bullying” — the new codeword for “Homophobia is wrong.”) and comes down solidly against bigotry, which would seem to include hatred toward homosexuals. Good for him. I’m not sure, however, if anyone ever really thought The Dilemma’s trailer was promoting intolerance or bullying or persecution. I think the issue was more about thoughtlessness and callousness — and about shoddy marketing. By being too cosmic about this whole thing, we lose sight of some real and actually fixable issues. (But sure, let’s be cosmic about this, too. I’m all for finding any excuse to spark cultural conversation about ending homophobia and cultivating a society where homosexuals feel less threatened and marginalized in any way, large or small.)
Vaughn’s statement also strongly and rather self-righteously expresses the following: Support for freedom of speech, an aversion to censorship, and an idealistic view that comedy is a redemptive force, inherently inoffensive, and beyond social criticism. Okay, I might be assuming way too much about Vaughn’s philosophy of comedy based on his statement. But his statement is certainly provocative. His defense would seem to excuse anything and everything that could possibly be said and done in the name of “comedy.” Do you agree with that?
I don’t see what Vaughn’s statement has to do with the controversial line in question. How exactly does characterizing an automobile as gay — even in a “my parents are chaperoning the dance” way, not necessarily a “homosexual way” — break tension and bring people together? Presumably the movie will explain this. Which brings us to a point that needs to be made, and frankly, I am stunned Vaughn didn’t make it himself: We haven’t seen this movie yet!We don’t know the context for the line. Wouldn’t it be interesting to discover that this seemingly callous, insensitive line serves the point of establishing that Vaughn’s character is callous and insensitive? Wouldn’t it be interesting to learn that there’s a gay character in the movie who confronts Vaughn’s character about his choice of words? I suspect that the first speculation will be proven to be true (but then, why did it have to be gays? Does Vaughn’s character express his hideousness by being offensive to other groups, too? Why weren’t those lines used in the trailer?), while the second speculation is rather unlikely. My point is that I don’t know. I don’t want to judge the movie based on its trailer — or rather, its original trailer. (The offending ad was pulled from circulation last weekend and replaced with another.)
Still, I think Vaughn is missing another important point. No one is saying his movie is offensive — yet. The uproar was over a trailer. A trailer is not a movie. It’s a commercial. It is supposed to flatter a movie and entice the widest possible audience within its target market to go see it. I guess I’d like to know if Vaughn felt the trailer flattered The Dilemma — and if he thinks it’s a movie that gay audiences (and those sympathetic to gay concerns) would find entertaining, despite of — or because of — the “gay gag” Moreover, I would to hear Ron Howard — who specializes in making big tent populist movies — address those issues, too. There’s still time; the movie doesn’t open until January. In fact, the extremely cynical part of me wonders if Vaughn’s provocatively passive-aggressive non-apology is an effort to keep The Dilemma top of mind, and set up the final act of this of PR drama: A joint appearance by Vaughn and Howard on a talk show and make an endearing show of atoning for their lapse of common sense and comedic judgment.
Read more:
‘The Dilemma’ is already one of the most important films of 2011
‘Gay’ controvesy: Studio releases new ‘Dilemma’ trailer
‘The Dilemma’: Universal deletes ‘gay’ scene from trailer
GLAAD urges Universal to pull controversial ‘Dilemma’ trailer from theaters
