Rych McCain Hollyhood Notes : 2016-11-13

Thursday, November 17, 2016

Zoe Kravitz - Allegiant

(C) 2016 by Rych McCain, All Rights Reserved. No part of this column may be reprinted, re-posted or duplicated without written permission from Rych McCain Media/Syndication. Violation is subject to applicable laws

Zoe Kravitz - Allegiant - Film

Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist

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Zoe Kravitz Roughs It Out In The Divergent Series: Allegiant (Part 2)

Allegiant is the final part of The

Divergent Series with part 2

coming out this March and the final

book will be split into a third

movie due March 24, 2017. The film

stars Shailene Woodley

(Tris);Theo James (Four); Zoe

Kravitz (Christina); Miles Teller

(Tori); Maggie Q (Tori) and Ansel

elgort (Caleb) This version

centers on a dystopian society

nestled in an area that once was

Chicago The inhabitants are divided

into five factions which

determines their lifestyles. With

Chicago on the verge of an all-out

civil war Tris leads her band of merry renegades over the wall that

encloses the city while being chased by armed guards shooting at

them. Of course once over the wall things get interesting.

Zoe Kravitz as Christina

Zoe Kravitz’s role as Christina along with the other four escapees gets physical and she has to play act with a lot more special effects than the previous Divergent film. She describes the experience saying, “Yeah, there is a lot more green screen and a lot more special effects so you have to have so more faith just because you’re trusting that whatever you’re doing you won’t feel silly in the moment and it’s going to work later once they work their magic. So you have to kind of learn a new way of acting. You’re acting with nothing there like the drowns; pretending they are there when they’re not. You gotta get used to it.”

The escapees scaling the wall

There are plenty of sticky and risky situations that the five escapees encounter that are pretty challenging once they are over that wall. When Kravitz read the script did she ask herself what would I do in real life if this happened to me or does she just go with the script? She laughs, “I don’t think so. I think if I start rationalizing that way I would have been gone so long ago. I think I just wouldn’t be in the film. You put yourself in the world and it makes it a little more easy to digest.”

Zoe Kravitz

Since this is a film series and there is a recurring cast, is it like being in high school for another year in a higher grade when you get together to shoot again? Kravitz responds, “Yeah, it is very interesting. All of our friendships have grown and evolved. As artists we’ve all grown and evolved. Our careers have grown and evolved so it has been really interesting you know to support each other watch other. We have been through thick and thin, we gotten into fights, we love each other. It is like a group of actual friends.” Kravitz also has a music career going with her band Lolawolf where she sings and writes music.

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Mackenzie Foy - The Little Prince - Film

Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist

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Mackenzie Foy Voice of The Little Girl In
The Little Prince

In 1942 author Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote and published “The Little Prince” which became a masterpiece and to date has sold over 145 million copies in 250 languages worldwide. The animated film version of this beloved novella was written by Irena Brignull and was directed by Mark Osborne, the co-director of DreamWorks’ Oscar nominated movie Kung Fu Panda. The producers were Aton Soumache, Dimitri Rassam and Alexis Vonarb the co-founders of On Animation Studios. The film was made in Paris and Montreal by an international team of talented animated feature film professionals in Paris and Montreal, The voice over cast includes Jeff Bridges (The Aviator); Rachel McAdams (The Mother); James Franco (The Fox); Marion Cotillard (The Rose); Benicio Del Toro (The Snake); Ricky Gervais (The Conceited Man); Riley Osborne (The Little Prince); Albert Brooks (The Business Man) and Mackenzie Foy (The Little Girl).

The Aviator meets The Little Prince after he crashes in the desert

“The Little Prince” is about the friendship between an eccentric old aviator and the very mature young girl who moves into the house next door with her extremely strict and regimented mother. The curious child peers into the neighboring aviator’s house one day and discovers a book of drawings he made that tells the story of how he crashed in a desert years ago and met the little prince, an enigmatic boy from a distant planet. The aviator’s experience and the tale of the little prince’s travels to other worlds bring the little girl and the aviator closer as they embark on a remarkable adventure together.

Little Girl (Mackenzie Foy) and The Aviator ( Jeff Bridges) Voice overs

We sat down to discuss the film with the director Mark Osborne and the voice of the little girl MacKenzie Foy. This story is steeped in mythology so how does that play out with today’s movie audience? Osborne explains, “As a 7 year-old little boy who saw the original Star Wars in a movie theatre and knew nothing about the power of myth but was completely floored by what I saw and it changed my life entirely. When I discovered later on in college what was really going on there; that made me want to be a film maker. That made me want to tell stories and made me sort of kind of understand a little bit f how it actually works and how stories can come from your instincts because there is stuff that we all share.”

The Little Prince

The old man at first appears to be creepy and scary but turns out to be pretty cool. Was that planned to throw the audience off for suspense purposes? Osborne says, “It was actually kind of difficult to figure how to play it out exactly. We designed his house and everybody’s like I’d rather live there. Yes you; everybody knows that’s the better place to live but in this world that is the place that nobody wants to go. So we kind of used that as a misdirect in a way to create this sort of creepy, scary guy and his presence that would end up having this incredible story to tell.” Osborne’s real life son is the little prince in the film and the personal/professional relationship worked really well on the project.


Mackenzie Foy voice of The Little Girl

Mackenzie Foy

For her role as the little girl, Mackenzie Foy had to go the extra mile.

She stressed, “The hardest part about it is trying to keep the energy up.

Because after about the sixth hour you’re kind of like oh, oh. With every

character there’s a different voice. You are trying to impersonate the

characters and you create an entirely new voice. And that is something that is really important especially to me as an actress because energy is

a very critical thing.” Foy did most of her work alone and the results are fantastic. All ages will enjoy this movie.

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Markees Christmas - Film

Rych McCain International/Nationally Syndicated Entertainment Columnist

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Markees Christmas

Makes His Playful Film Debut

Teen newcomer Markees Christmas stars as Morris Gentry in a new coming-of-age movie titled “Morris From America.” The idea here is that Morris is a 13-year-old who has just relocated with his single father Curtis, played by Craig Robinson, to Heidelberg, Germany. Morris’s rap skills leave a lot to be desired but he fancies himself to be the next Notorious B.I.G. To complicate matters further, Morris quickly falls hard for his cool, rebellious, 15-year-old classmate Katrin played by German actress Lina Keller. Morris sets out against all odds to take the hip-hop world by storm and win the girl of his dreams. The film was written and directed by Chad Hartigan and won two prizes at this year’s Sundance film Festival i.e., the Waldo Salt Screening Award and a Special Jury Award for Robinson. This film is Robinson’s first dramatic role for which he has received great reviews. Robinson is best known as Daryl Philban on the smash hit NBC-TV show “The Office.”

Morris (MarkeesChristmas) meets Katrin (Lina Keller)

Markees Christmas is a native of Los Angeles and is currently a high school student. He began acting with a school play in the 6^th grade which led to acting in a series of channel 101 shorts. With such an unusual last name, is he razed a lot for it? Christmas laughs, “As far as school, everybody on the staff calls me Mr. Christmas. People in the town that I live in, call me Christmas when they see me. I mean It’s just something that you catch regularly when you have a name like that.” One can imagine how stupid crazy it gets during the actual Christmas holidays. Christmas laughs, “They like to do it. They think it’s funny. Once I’m done eating my Thanksgiving dinner, I’m just like I want to go to sleep until Christmas is over.”

Morris and Katrin talk

Christmas secured his role in Morris via regular appearances in an online project called Channel 101 where anyone can shoot homemade shorts and upload them. How did he become aware of Channel 101? Christmas explains, “I was with my mentor from the big brother program for like two years before that. He never told me about it. That was something he enjoyed by himself. I didn’t have anything to do with film back then. I wasn’t even thinking about that back then. I was doing real bad in the 6^th grade and they basically told me there’s a school play coming up and if you don’t participate you’re going to be in the 6^th grade again. I said that can’t happen to me so I ended up participating in the school play “A Rasin In The Sun” by Lorraine Hansberry. Of course, it was revised a little bit because we were in the 6^th grade. I tried out for the part of Travis the son which doesn’t have a lot of lines. That’s what I was going for so I could get to 7^th grade. They lied to me and told me we already have a Travis. It’s Walter or you’re going to be in 6^th grade again.

L-R Craig Robinson and Markees Christmas

I took Walter, I got my lines down, I practice my lines with my mom and anybody I could find. I wanted to question why would they want to give me this part? I don’t even know why they would trust me with this part. I’m not experienced; this is my first time acting. I didn’t know that’s what I was going to end up doing. I wasn’t expecting it but it came out better than I imagined it to.” Christmas started to shoot the small Channel 101 shorts which he used to audition for Morris and he got the part. As they say, the rest is history.

Markees Christmas

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