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Fifty Shades of Black, 2016.
Directed by Michael Tiddes. Starring Marlon Wayans, Kali Hawk, Affion Crockett, Jane Seymour, Florence Henderson, Jenny Zigrino, Fred Willard, and Mike Epps.
SYNOPSIS:
An inexperienced college student meets a wealthy businessman whose sexual practices put a strain on their relationship.
Normally, whenever I'm about to watch a modern-day Marlon Wayans comedy (I use that term loosely as to not insult actual comedies) I am mentally crying inside, trying to prepare myself for the next 90 minutes that will inexplicably feel as long as some epic Christopher Nolan movie. This time though, I had some hope coming in. After all, this time around it is Fifty Shades of Grey being parodied and roasted; a movie so unintentionally hilarious and plagued with both despicable and idiotic characters, it feels as if the spoof material would write itself.
The answer to that inquiry is both yes and no, as Fifty Shades of Black is certainly aware of how preposterous and dumb the material that is being sent up (or rather down in this case) is, to the point where some of the scenes being mocked could be edited into the original movie and fit right in, aside from the fact that the characters are now black. And those small moments are when Fifty Shades of Black does elevate itself from the typical garbage you would expect from Marlon Wayans (who I will once again defend as being a legitimately capable great actor when he's not feeling lazy) to intelligent parody. It also knows how to poke fun, or rather simply point out, that the actual character of Christian Gray is nothing more than a sick freak only interested in mentally and physically abusing women, but I'll stop there and just let you go read my actual review of Fifty Shades of Grey if you want those thoughts.
As always, Marlon Wayans is game to get a rise out of his audience regardless of how far he has to go in terms of degrading himself. Basically, that sentence means that there are quite a few visual dick jokes from multiple characters; it's the bottom of the barrel trash humor you would expect from a comedy in this style. On another note, who is actually laughing at all of these cartoonishly graphic penis gags that seemingly inhabit every current R-rated comedy? I rarely ever laugh at one, so having three or four in the same movie is beyond overkill.
It's also a shame that once again, Wayans is relying on the oldest black stereotypes in the book to elicit laughs. No, it's not funny that the parents of Hannah have decided to give Christian Black a bunch of fried chicken for his meal at the culturally educational family dinner. That joke has been done to death to the point where if that is all it takes to write a successful comedy, then sign me up because I sure as shit could do this too. The only thing missing from the scene was some grape soda.
The rest of the jokes are all centered on physical slapstick comedy that make no earthly sense. There's a scene where Christian tries spanking Hannah as punishment, but since his hands are so weak he begins using strong physical objects like wooden stools, that even when swung and shattered across her ass, faze her not one bit. I'm really not sure which is most lazy; this style of humor, penis jokes, or stereotypical racially charged quips.
Still, it's tough to outright hate Fifty Shades of Black considering that Wayans legitimately does understand how horrendous both the source material and character he is mocking truly is. Wayans also injects his own interpretation of the character as someone essentially frustrated from being terrible at sex, along with the molestation revelation from the actual movie (except this time there's an absolutely amazing Whiplash homage tossed in).
It's also worth noting that it is really only the final act that truly begins scraping the bottom of the barrel for laughs (there's an extended stripping dance sequence by Wayans that is completely superfluous), as if they were running out of promising scenes to spoof. Fifty Shades of Black rapidly misfires jokes, but the ones that land are gold and successfully put into perspective how stupid and absurd this whole phenomenon is. Honestly, the whole experience would fare better as a skit rather than a feature-length film.
Actors on the red carpet for the 22nd SAG Awards give USA TODAY their own take on famous movie lines from "I'll be back" to "May the force be with you."
New Batman V Superman movie pic shows Iron Batman on the attack. As previously reported, Empire Magazine dropped a couple of new movie photos for the upcoming "Batman v Superman: Dawn Of Justice" super hero/action flick, and this one shows us a brand new look at Batman all suited up in his armored suit, trying to attack the Man Of Steel. However, Superman doesn't look too scared. In fact, he seems quite pissed off and annoyed.
All the new photos appear in the new March 2016 edition of Empire magazine along with other new details about the flick. It stars: Henry Cavill as Superman/Clark Kent and Ben Affleck as Batman/Bruce Wayne, Amy Adams as Lois Lane, Laurence Fishburne as Perry White, Diane Lane as Ma Kent, Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor, Ray Fisher as Cyborg ,and Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman/Diana Prince, Jeremy Irons,Jason Momoa as Aquaman, Holly Hunter ,and Scoot McNairy.
It's still due to make its theatrical debut in just under 2 months from now on March 25th, 2016. Stay tuned.
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SAG Awards stars give their spin on famous movie lines
Actors on the red carpet for the 22nd SAG Awards give USA TODAY their own take on famous movie lines from "I'll be back" to "May the force be with you."
Ratatouille has never looked better than it did in the Pixar movie. A perfect accordion of vegetables of different colors winding themselves in a pot glazed with visual deliciousness. Which makes sense because one of the best chefs in the world, Thomas Keller, imagined the recipe up for the animators at Pixar to make. But here it is in a real life form from the folks at ChefSteps[1].
It's ratatouille in a 'confit byaldi' style and you can learn exactly how to make it below. Vegetables have never looked so good.
First things first – Sudha Kongara's hard-earned movie 'Saala Khadoos' is the first sports drama of 2016. Yes, probably not as bouyed in the market as the forthcoming biggies – 'Sultan' and 'Dangal' – but a sports flick tracing the life of a man, and a young girl both inside and outside the shoddy, roughed-up terrain of the boxing ring.
Going straight to the plot – there's not much in store. Except this is a story of how a disgraced Women's Boxing coach (R Madhavan), who is also an erratic and loud person in real life, strikes up an unusual camaraderie with an equally blatant and foolhardy fisher woman. But this is no love story we are dealing with, actually Adi (Madhavan) sees a potential boxer in Madhi (Ritika Singh) and pursues her with a salary of Rs 500 every day – to talk her into being trained under him (hoping this might also save him from his tiff with the head coach – who dismisses him to Chennai in fake accusation of sexual harassment).
The two face off with equally tempestuous energies and rage, but eventually it is Madhi who overpowers Adi in imprudence. No wonder, this goes against the over-celebrated saying: opposite attracts. Tough coach rests his faith on the young, wild potential boxer – and drama ensues.
The direction could be easily blamed for generating repetitiveness, but I beg to differ. I wouldn't call this bad direction, but just a different treatment. One of the issues with the film is the insistent soundtracks – although at times it only propels the narration, there are those moments when the bombardment of music breaks your focus on the script. Tame down the abrasive narration a bit too, may be?
That said, no, I wouldn't compare it with erstwhile sport dramas – neither with 'Chak De! India' with which it has the highest semblance. And I would do it to keep the substance alive, and original. We often run into making these sheer comparisons - refusing to redeem the efforts put into making a particular movie.
Coming to the favourite part in the movie- it's the lead actors who give the real knockouts! Be it R Madhavan's beefed-up, macho coach avatar, he makes us believe he can play the entire opposite of the mellow, henpecked hubby in 'Tanu Weds Manu' series.
And we love him this way too! Ritika Singh is another part in the movie which owes an analysis. She may not be a leggy lass with a scarlet mouth, but she has redefined the definition of beauty and shrewdness.
For me she is the new sexy. Every time she packed a punch, boy, did she look like someone who could topple any muscle man with ease. She definitely brought in a stream of freshness with a make-up free avatar.
Music, screenplay are both okay – but the narration runs bare at times. So, coming to the conclusion, are you wondering if the khadoos managed to pull a smile in the end?
Well, he did and with such a powerful climax! This sports drama will stay with you if you can embrace it for its lead performance. To put it more aptly, the leads definitely pack a punch!
The 43-year-old actor won his first award for Best Supporting Actor in a Movie and his second for Best Male Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries.
Idris won Best Supporting Actor in a Movie for his incredible work in the movie Beasts of No Nation. He beat out The Big Short's Christian Bale[3], Bridge of Spies' Mark Rylance, 99 Homes' Michael Shannon and Room's Jacob Tremblay to win the award.
During his speech, Idris recalled how he got his SAG card.
"I remember getting my SAG card from Law & Order," Idris recalled. "That was 20 years ago, so thank for that man."
Idris went on to thank the movie's director Cary Fukunaga and the rest of the production team on the film.
"I want to tell you man we made a film about real people and real lives you know?" Idris said. "And to be awarded for it is very special because a lot of people were damaged through that, so thank you for giving this film some light man, respect."
Idris then won his second award for Best Male Actor in a TV Movie or Miniseries for his work in Luther.
"Wow, I don't know what to say man, I really don't," Idris said during his second acceptance speech. "Thank you so much everyone that's in this room for giving me that."
Watch the Fashion Police SAG Awards special Monday, Feb. 1 at 8 p.m., only on E!
One of the actors in the upcoming Warcraft movie is a seriously big-time fan of World of Warcraft[1]. Robert Kazinsky appeared on Conan O'Brien's late night show this week and talked about how Blizzard Entertainment's PC MMO saved his life.
He explains that after the success of his BBC show EastEnders, he had trouble dealing with the fame. He turned into something of an agoraphobe to avoid people, which ultimately brought him to World of Warcraft.
Kazinsky says once he got hooked, he played the game 18 hours a day, ordering Chinese food constantly and putting out cigarettes in days-old Coke cans. He gained an estimated 50 pounds.
"This game suddenly became my life," he said. "This game would slowly give me rewards and it allowed me to talk to people and make friends who were judging me anonymously. So I was able to forge new relationships that didn't come with any preconceptions."
These in-game rewards positively affected his real-world confidence.
"And before you know it, I was able to have a little bit of self-belief again," Kazinsky explained. "I credit World of Warcraft with saving my life."
He says he has a great life now living in Los Angeles with his girlfriend, working on TV shows and movies. But he fondly remembers the days he spent playing World of Warcraft.
"I've never been happier than when I was really fat and no one had any expectations of me and I was playing video games," he said.
Kazinsky plays the character Orgrim in Warcraft. The film, directed by Duncan Jones (Moon, Source Code), opens this summer. You can watch the full segment above, in which Kazinsky also explains how he'd go about trying to beat up O'Brien.
Warcraft is one of more than a dozen movies based on video games currently in development. Check out GameSpot's roundup[2] to see some of the others.
The Finest Hours centers on the story of 30-something sailors trapped aboard the SS Pendleton in the winter of 1952. A vicious storm broke the ship in half and four men were sent to save them. This film is based on a true story and it is truly terrible.
Under the direction of Craig Gillespie (Million Dollar Arm), The Finest Hours stars Chris Pine (Star Trek) as Bernie Webber who has none of the charm, wit, or likeability found in a typical leading man. Instead he is quiet, awkward, and often confused. The film doesn't begin in the water but, instead, on Bernie's first date with his future wife Miriam (Holliday Grainger). The couple's first interaction not only adds nothing to the overall narrative but it is incredibly awkward, and not in a cute way. He mentions at one point that she looks like Smokey the Bear because of her fur coat to which she replies with an uncomfortable giggle and the film only goes downhill from there. This effort to be cute and charming (or at least, one would assume it was meant to be as such) falls short as their relationship comes across as forced and dispassionate. After a clunky and uncomfortable first date, it only gets more uncomfortable when Miriam asks Bernie to m arry him and he simply says, "No." He reluctantly agrees to marry her but his love for her never seems genuine. Their relationship is forced into the narrative without any real indication that the two are really in love or even compatible. Of course, in real life, the two were married and stayed married for fifty-eight years so that probably should have made it easier for their relationship to come across as realistic and genuine. At least, one would assume.
Aboard the SS Pendleton is Ray Sybert (Casey Affleck) who is trying to save the ship from sinking after it was split in half. Though the waves and wind crash around them, the crew never seems really desperate or to truly seem to grasp the gravity of their situation. After being trapped in the freezing cold and stumbling around icy water, no one seems really fazed by the drastically low temperature or by the fact that they have been trapped on a sinking ship for days. No one seems to react appropriately to their situation as the crew members bicker amongst themselves like children. They are, of course, angry and argumentative but the intensity of their frantic babbling never rises above a heated debate. None of the crew members seem to realize that they are going to die and the stakes are never risen very high because all of the tense scenes are downright hokey. It is hard to determine exactly how perilous their situation actually is as it is only described in exposition. Though t he temperatures are supposed to be below freezing, the crew never seems to shiver or even acknowledge the cold at all.
Ray is, undoubtedly, meant to be, like Bernie, a strong, likeable, and commanding leader but he fails to exhibit any of these attributes. Ray supposedly knows the ship better than anyone but no one trusts his decisions and he barely seems to trust himself. He comes across as someone who has just had a rough day at the office instead of a strong and resilient leader. In fact, his character is so unremarkable and ridiculous that he gives his most moving speech while peeling the shell off a boiled egg.
Bernie takes a small crew of forgettable Coast Guardsman on a small lifeboat to save the crew of the SS Pendleton. It may seem obvious that when watching a rescue mission, the audience should feel compelled to cheer on the members of the rescue team but it is hard to root for characters who could easily have been replaced by cardboard cut-outs (this would definitely have made the film more enjoyable to watch). Even on the rescue mission, Bernie seems bewildered that they even made it as far as they did and barely seems confident in his own knowledge or experience. He is definitely not the confident leader one would have to be to pull off such a risky rescue. The best you can say about him is that he gets consistently lucky.
While the ship is sinking and Bernie is on a mission to save the crew, Miriam is on a mission of her own that is equally tedious, and even more laughable. She frantically begs Coast Guard Officer Cluff (Eric Bana) to order Bernie to turn the lifeboat around. To be fair to Grainger, she puts in the effort to come across as empowered and assertive but it was in vain. Instead, she comes across as clingy, ridiculous, and hysterical. The script, written by Scott Silver, Paul Tamasy, Eric Johnson, fails to utilize the acting talent available to them by being slow and clunky. Grainger is yet another actress whose talent is diminished because the writers were unable to write her a quality role.
All of these flaws may be expected from a film that relies solely on special effects, however, the CGI is surprisingly unimpressive. Every scene aboard the SS Pendleton and in the water clearly looks as though it was shot using a green screen while buckets of lukewarm water is being dumped onto the actors. When most of a film is completed in post-production, the narrative and the visuals often suffer as they do in The Finest Hours. While the film claims to be authentic and based on actual events, the actors are never authentically fearful, frantic, or even seemingly cold.
Verdict: 1 out of 5
Despite being based on real life heroism, adventure, desperation, and bravery, The Finest Hours exhibits none. It tries to be heartwarming, endearing, and exciting but it falls short by having lifeless characters and awkward dialogue. The film is flat, uninteresting, and tedious to watch and will only have the audience at the edge of their seats in the anticipation of its conclusion.
The US has spoken: Tom Hanks is its favorite movie star, according to a new Harris Poll[1].
It's hard to argue. Over Hanks' 36-year career, he's evolved from being the star of light-hearted, feel-good movies like "Splash" and "The Money Pit" to Oscar-winning dramatic roles in "Philadelphia" and "Forrest Gump." Regardless of the role, he's played the characters with a quality of genuine likability and trustworthiness.
And he's only gotten better with age, whether he's introducing himself to newer generations as Woody in the "Toy Story" franchise or taking on roles of heroes, like James Donovan in "Bridge of Spies" and his upcoming movie "Sully" where he plays pilot Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger, who did an emergency landing of a US Airways flight in the Hudson River in 2009.
The poll listed the results of its survey of 2,252 US adults with Hanks on top, followed by four other men — Johnny Depp in second, Denzel Washington in third (he was the country's favorite actor last year), John Wayne in fourth, and "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" star Harrison Ford in fifth.
The first woman on the list was Sandra Bullock, in sixth place. She was followed by Jennifer Lawrence in seventh place.
This is the fifth time Hanks has taken the honor. He's done it previously in 2002, 2004, 2005, and 2013.
Hanks is third all-time in box office gross[2] with a $4.3 billion lifetime gross. Ford claimed the top spot over Samuel L. Jackson at the end of 2015 with a total lifetime gross of $4.8 billion, thanks to the massive success of "The Force Awakens."
'The thing I get most hate about on social media is being a feminist. It blows my mind.' Photograph: Amanda Friedman for the Guardian
Within a few minutes of meeting the actor Ellen Page[1] near her Los Angeles home, we're talking about what she enjoys doing around here, which is going surfing with her girlfriend, artist Samantha Thomas[2]. She likes to watch Thomas, the more experienced surfer, ex amine the waves. Thomas tells her which way to turn, based on movements in the water that Page can't even see. "Particularly on days where there are onshore winds, so it's kind of rough, she'll say, 'Oh, a wave's coming at you, it's a right, go right' and I'm just like, 'What are you looking at? You can read the ocean like that?' It's really hot," she adds, the excitement in her gentle voice suggesting that she is quietly, but madly, in love.
There is nothing hugely remarkable about any of this, especially here in California, except that until February 2014 Page would have been unable to have such a conversation with a journalist. The actor who starred in Juno[3], Hard Candy[4] and Whip It[5], all films about tough young women who go against the grain, was living a lie. She was pretending to be straight, or at least "lying by omission", as she puts it, intent on fulfilling her acting ambitions without any adverse attention, even though she had been out of the closet with her loved ones for years. But the double life had started to take its toll on her sanity, so she decided, a month before the event, that she would come out during a speec h at a Las Vegas[6] conference for counsellors of young LGBT people. "I'm here today because I am gay," she revealed, halfway through an eight-minute talk[7], to a standing ovation that began before she had even finished. It was Valentine's Day.
Page was only 26, but had been acting professionally since the age of 10; at 20, she was nominated for an Academy Award for best actress for her role as the eponymous pregnant high-school student in Juno[8]. The gulf between her public and private lives had been growing long enough. "I felt, let's just please be done with this chapter of discomfort and sadness and anxiety, and hurting my relationships, and all those things that come with it," she says now, sitting in the corner of a restaurant, in a baseball cap, sipping a green tea. "I felt guilty for not being a visible person for the community, and for having the privilege that I had and not using it. I had got to the point where I was telling myself, you know, you should feel guilty about this. I was an active participant in an element of Hollywood that is gross. I would never judge somebody else for not coming out, but for me, personally, it did start to feel like a moral imperative."
The day after the speech, she flew straight to Montreal to do reshoots for her role as Kitty Pryde in X-Men: Days Of Future Past[9], and everyone there told her she seemed totally different. "And I was totally different! Just the immediacy of how much better I felt. I felt it in every cell of my body."
Videos of her confessional moment soon hit YouTube, and have now been viewed by more than 5 million people around the world. It seems extraordinary that the sexuality of one young person in a secular democracy can still make headline news, but then Hollywood is an extraordinary place. As Page herself says, "It'll be amazing, the day when it's not a thing, when an actress doesn't feel like she needs to make a speech. That's obviously the goal."
When we meet, she has just finished shooting a film called Freeheld[10], which she both co-starred in and helped produce; it has been her passion project to get the story behind it turned into a movie. She and Julianne Moore play real-life couple Stacie Andree and Laurel Hester who, in 2005, fought to have their relationship officially recognised so that Hester, a New Jersey police detective who was dying of cancer, could leave her pension to Andree. Page plays Andree, the upfront young car mechanic who gets angry with her older lover for keeping their relationship a secret.
The film got a mixed reception on its US release last year. The New York Times review called it "as generic as the bullet points in a gay rights brochure"[11] and declared that "the lives behind this movie deserve better", laying some of the blame with screenwriter Ron Nyswaner[12]. Nyswaner responded in a speech at a Los Angeles awards ceremony, claiming that the final production was not true to his script, that it had been "de-gayed" to make queer lives look more mainstream[13]: "The gay characters were idealised, their edges were smoothed out, the conflict between them was softened."
'I felt guilty for not being a visible person for the community, and for having the privilege that I had and not using it.' Photograph: Amanda Friedman for the Guardian
Page and I meet the morning after Nyswaner's speech, and when I bring it up, it is the only time I see her upset. She says Nyswaner has already apologised personally, "but it was a hard day yesterday". Her speech falters. "Sorry, it clearly affected me. I'm glad he wrote the apology, because… sorry, it was such a shock to me. I mean, I love the movie, I'm very proud of the movie, and one of the things I'm most proud about is how it's so not de-gayed. Look, it's hard to make any independent movie, particularly one that stars two women, and this one also happens to be two, you know, gay women. You will never be able to please everybody, but I cannot even begin to speculate why he would have said that."
Does Page wish more people had seen the film?
"Of course! But the thing about movies now is they can have really, really long lives." She points out that people can find it later online, and that if it didn't have "the life in the American theatre that I wish", that's not the end of the story.
I have to ask her what it was like being married to Julianne Moore[17], which, despite the whole terminal cancer thing, must have been pretty great. Page laughs. "She's the best, yeah, and she's an extraordinary person, too. She's obviously one of the best actresses, I think, ever." She was thrilled when Moore signed up, because they had never met; now, they are close friends. "She's just a wonderful, utter delight of a human, who just loves her job and works so hard. And has an awesome family."
Juno, in 2007, was the film that sent Page's career stellar. Photograph: Twentieth Century Fox
Ellen Page[21], real name Ellen Philpotts-Page, grew up in Halifax, in the Canadian maritime province of Nova Scotia. Her father was a graphic designer and her mother a French teacher; Page talks about photos of her as a student in France, before motherhood, "in these beautiful clothes and a really short haircut. She's stunning." They divorced when Ellen was tiny, so she spent her childhood between their two houses, a fortnight in each, something she says may have given her an aptitude for "being in new spaces all the time".
The young Page lacked her mother's talent for French, "but my mom is so passionate about what she does that it made me respect teachers. I was fortunate that I had something ingrained in me, that I had to do well at school." She became self-sufficient: riding her bike to the woods, jumping in the lake, playing soccer at a high level. She loved Nova Scotia's remoteness: "You're just surrounded by so much beauty and stillness."
But her mother had family in the big city, Toronto, and on one visit they all went to see The Phantom Of The Opera. "I think that was the only show there, ever, and we couldn't even sit together." She learned the words to all the songs; she gives me a few lines of The Music Of The Night, giggling. "I asked my mom, 'What school do I go to to learn to be Christine?' and she said, 'You go to university.' And I was like, 'You'll come with me, right?' She was like, 'Honey, by that time, I think you won't want me to.' I was like, 'No, don't say that!'"
Page left home to work as an actor even sooner than that. She joined the drama club at school, where a casting director spotted her and put her in a television movie, Pit Pony[22], which became a TV series. "It's just mind-boggling, what I do now. I sometimes think, what if I was sick that day the casting guy came into school?" There followed more Canadian TV and films, and another movie shot in Europe. She grew very independent; she was supposed to be accompanied by chaperones on set, but because her parents both worked full-time, "we'd finagle it so, say, the horse-wrangler's daughter was my chaperone".
At 16, she moved to Toronto on her own, then went to Los Angeles to star in Hard Candy[23], an astonishing film about a paedophile and a teenage girl who turns the tables on him. I tell her it blew my mind. "Yeah, Hard Candy was intense. My dad came with me to do that. But they were always cool with the subject matter, they trusted me. I think back now to the idea of your daughter moving out at 16, when you're a child actor," she pauses. "But I was so disciplined. I knew this was what I wanted to do." In the film, her character tortures the older man, handing him a noose in a potential forced suicide. "I remember getting ready for those scenes, I was 16, and I was almost separate from myself: shocked by it, and curious, and excited. It was a very exhilarating feeling, and very addictive."
The trailer for Freeheld
But it was Juno, in 2007, that sent her career stellar, with nominations for the Oscars, Golden Globes and Baftas. At the Oscars, the film won best original screenplay. Thankfully, Page, who was 20 at the time, had an industry mentor to look out for her; by then she hadn't built her own life in Los Angeles. "I basically lived with Catherine Keener[24] when I was going through Juno's awards season time, which was wonderful but crazy. It's like a lot, you know? We'd met when we worked on a film together that nobody saw." (An American Crime, a true story in which Keener's character tort ures the younger Page; the film never made it to the cinemas.) "So she was really protective and kind."
After a trip away, Page landed back in LA on her 21st birthday. "I got to Catherine's house and she had a surprise party for me. I came in and she'd put up balloons and stuff. But I didn't know anybody, so everyone wore name tags." Which is how she met her close friend, film director Spike Jonze[25], wearing his name on his shirt. Peaches[26], the electro pop star, is now a good friend, too; they met, "weirdly, when I was in Amsterdam with her friend Har Mar Superstar[27], writing a show we sold to HBO that never got made. I'm crazy about Peaches. I'm going to see her do a show tomorrow."
'It's just mind-boggling, what I do now. I sometimes think, what if I was sick that day the casting guy came into school.' Photograph: Amanda Friedman for the Guardian
But it's not all famous friends and parties. After shooting Whip It, directed by Drew Barrymore, Page retreated for a month – not to a Caribbean beach, but to an eco-village in Oregon with total strangers, where she studied permaculture and went to sleep and woke up with the sun. "We created giant composts. We'd pee in a bucket with hay in it, then put the pee buckets on the compost."
Did she ever think, I'm a movie star now: I could just press a button and get out of here?
"No! I loved it. When I left and everyone in the class was holding hands in a circle, I was fully sobbing. One of those kinds of cries where you're just… I would not have anticipated that's what my response would have been. I was ugly crying. There was something really special about it, because I'd gone from shooting Juno to Whip It, and then straight there. And all of that was so incredible, but I was clearly desiring something that really felt connected to the earth. And that's where I met my best friend, Ian Daniel, who's been my soul twin ever since." Daniel is a gay man from Indiana, who had driven to Oregon in an old school bus powered by vegetable oil; he describes their friendship as a "love story", but not a love affair.
The soul twins now have a job together, presenting Gaycation for Vice TV[31]. The series was Page's idea, and it involves them going to parts of the world where coming out doesn't win you a standing ovation: Jamaica, Japan, or lunch with a US Republican senator. In a Brazilian favela, they visit a man who prides himself on murdering gay people. "He said things like, 'If I'm in my car and I see a gay person, I run them over.' The moment he walked into the room, it felt like a black hole sucking something out of me. I haven't experienced anything like it. He didn't know that we were gay." Did the thought cross her mind that she could kill him, right then? "Yeah, you do stand there thinking, well, what am I doing?" The man left the room before they could say any more. Other encounters have been more aggressive, with people screaming in Page's face. "And then the cameras turn off and they hit on the lesbian: that happens a lot. They're like, 'You don't know what you're missing.' Fuck off!"
They made another film with a young man who "for whatever reason, wanted us to be there when he came out to his mother, which was one of the most intense experiences of my life." Did his mother not wonder why there was a camera crew in her kitchen? "He told her that his media friends were here, and she was just sort of like, 'Cool.' It was weird, and believe me, we had a conversation about it: is this OK? It was really what he wanted. But before his mother got there, he asked me, 'How did you do it?' So I shared that with him. But when I'm looking at the edits of the show, if it's me talking about myself, it makes me cringe a little. The goal is to go and look at the LGBT culture, at the joy and the liberation."
In recent years, Page has spoken publicly about domestic violence, trans rights, gay suicides, inequality. "And the thing that I would say you get the most hate about, on social media, in my experience, is if you tweet anything about women's rights or feminism[32]. It blows my mind. But it's the thought of not being a feminist that actually blows my mind. I feel that, at least now, there seem to be more women who are willing to say, 'Yes, I'm a feminist.' It's shocking to me that that would ever be an issue, to not say that. I really struggle to wrap my head around that."
With girlfriend, the artist Samantha Thomas. Photograph: Gregory Pace/BEI/Shutterstock
Otherwise, life is pretty peachy. Page recently bought a modernist house in the Hollywood Hills and says that LA really feels like home now. She and her "awesome girlfriend" have a cute dog called Patter, who gets posted a lot on their Instagram feeds[36]. Plus, Justin Trudeau[37] is the new Can adian prime minister. "And it's exciting, not only that he got elected and that Stephen Harper's finally gone, but because the Liberals have a majority in parliament."
I ask if coming out has affected the roles that are offered to her, and she has to take a breath, nod, sigh. "I'd be lying if I said that wasn't something I feared, and that's the big reason so many people haven't come out. For me, being out within my life became far more important than being in any movie."
Of course, Page wasn't exactly getting the typical romcom parts anyway. "Totally. I think my gayness was already playing its role in regards to my career. I'm not naive to that element of the business. I hope it changes."
We discuss the gender pay gap in Hollywood, and an essay that Jennifer Lawrence wrote about it. "The issue is also about how many female writers there are, female directors, even female soundtrack composers," Page adds. "I just mean, pretty much every facet of this industry. In my circle of friends, it's something we talk about all the time. And I feel like there's finally a conversation happening." •[39]
