The name Ashley Bell may not spark universal recognition. But horror fans will no doubt remember the poster for 2010′s The Last Exorcism featuring Bell in a back bend.
The 26-year-old actress burst onto the Hollywood scene with her role as the young, innocent Nell Sweetzer, possessed by a demon in the Eli Roth-produced The Last Exorcism. The low-budget-found-footage film earned nearly $70 million worldwide. Bell’s performance garnered her a Best Supporting Female Spirit Award nomination, an MTV Movie Award nomination, and some Oscar buzz—not bad for her first time on screen. The actress will reprise the role in the sequel, The Last Exorcism Part II, which bows on March 1st. She said, “I am a huge horror fan. I love horror movies. And it was the role of a lifetime to get a chance to play Nell in the first movie, and then get a chance to see the continuation of Nell’s story in the second film.”
I recently sat down with Portuguese filmmaker Miguel Gomes in Manhattan’s Film Forum, where his new feature Tabuwill be screening as of December 26th. The film’s story begins in Lisbon where we meet Aurora, an elderly woman with a seemingly uninteresting life. Following her death, Aurora’s neighbor and maid join to find an old man with a connection to Aurora’s past. As the man begins to tell his and Aurora’s story, we are transported to a former Portuguese colony in Africa, where we witness their youthful, eccentric lives play out.
Tabu is told in two distinct parts: the first half set in Lisbon in the present day and the second set in Africa decades earlier. Both benefit from the classic mode of filmmaking that Gomes employed. His use of black-and-white imagery and a 4:3 aspect ratio hearken back to a cinema of old, honoring a long-forgotten art while emphasizing the film’s theme of lost youth.
This year, the film has screened at the New York Film Festival, Sydney Film Festival, Las Palmas Film Festival (Spain), and won two awards at the prestigious Berlin International Film Festival.
Limité film contributor Janice Y. Perez recently interviewed prolific French actor and director Mathieu Amalric about his film L’illusion comique (The Screen Illusion), which he directed and is based on the 17th-century play by Pierre Corneille.
Amalric’s acting credits include David Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis (2012), Marc Forster’s Quantum of Solace (2008), and Julian Schnabel’s The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007). Among his several accolades are three prestigious César Awards and two awards at the Cannes Film Festival.
NOTE: This audio interview begins with the trailer for the new film Bernie, followed by stills from the film.
This interview contains spoilers.
—– Bernie is clear-cut evidence to the cliché that nice guys really do finish last. Or in this particular black comedy based on a real-life, extremely bizarre story set in the backdrop of a small town in East Texas, nice guys sometimes don’t get to finish at all.
In November 16, 1996, sweet and peachy assistant funeral director Bernie Tiede, then 39 years old, shot and killed 81-year-old widow and millionaire Marjorie Nugent after being her confidant, business manager, and suspected lover for six years. However, her murder wasn’t discovered until nine months later, for Bernie managed to hide her body in a freezer in her garage. Given her reputable nastiness and dour disposition, nobody in the tiny town of Carthage looked for her or even cared that she had gone unseen for almost a year. It was only when her former financial advisor began to get suspicious of his unanswered calls that the gruesome discovery was finally made.
Limité Magazine recently sat down for a round-table interview with Jack Black, who excellently portrays the flamboyant but enigmatic Bernie Tiede in writer/director Richard Linklater’s newest, quirky tragi-comedy of this 16-year-old true crime story that continues to baffle until today. Bernie showcases Black’s spectacular acting (and singing) range. He first worked with Linklater in 2003′s hit School of Rock.
