Filed in Movies Smashed

Up and Comers Names Mary on the Breakout Stars of 2012

Because of her highly buzzed about film Smashed, UpandComers has named Mary on of the breakout stars of 2012. Here’s what they wrote:

Fanboys have long considered Mary Elizabeth Winstead a dream girl thanks to her many roles in various horror movies, the “Die Hard” franchise and especially after playing Ramona Flowers in Edgar Wright’s “Scott Pilgrim vs the World”, and in 2012, she’s got the admiration of serious film buffs as well thanks to a revelatory turn in Sundance hit “Smashed.” Now, armed with awards-worthy acting chops which has already earned her an Independent Spirit Award nomination, she’ll continue to diversify her already eclectic resume. It’s back to Sundance next month with two films, the coming of age dramedy “The Spectacular Now” with Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley, which reunites Winstead with her “Smashed” director James Ponsoldt, and comedy “A.C.O.D.” She also stars in Roman Coppola’s “Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III”, loosely based on the life of and starring Charlie Sheen and after being shortlisted a bunch of times, is it finally her turn to land a major role in a superhero franchise?

Congrats, Mary! 🙂

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Two New TV Spots for A Good Day to Die Hard

The first TV spot for director John Moore’s A Good Day to Die Hard has come online. Mary’s not featured in it sadly (likely since her role is just a cameo), but the film looks really great and it looks like it’ll have lots of action so I can’t wait to see it personally. The film will be released into theaters on February 14, 2013.

Update: A second TV spot has been released, which you can see below.

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Filed in Film Reviews Movies Smashed

First Showing Names Smashed one of the Top Favorites of 2012

One of the FirstShowing editors chose Smashed as one of his favorite films of 2012 largely in part due to Mary’s performance. Here’s what he had to say:

Winstead, a great actress with a very hit-or-miss filmography, found a fantastic script to showcase another of her excellent performances with James Ponsoldt’s Smashed, in which she plays an alcoholic named Kate who tries to get her life back on track. Like the film itself, Winstead is raw and unflinching here, unafraid to imbue her performance with real devastating emotion instead of hinging on cliche and melodrama to get the job done. Kate is damaged goods, and the normally-cheery Winstead disappears into the character, giving her a powerful sense of intensity that shines whenever she’s on screen.

 

 

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Filed in Film Reviews Movies Smashed

HeyUGuys Reviews Smashed

UK site HeyUGuys has reviewed Smashed and I’ve posted part of it below. Hit the link to read the review in full:

Winstead will probably be best known to most for her performances in films such as Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Die Hard 4.0, The Thing and Final Destination 3. She’s always given the impression that she’s an actress with a great deal of talent, even if she’s rarely been given much to sink her teeth into here. Kudos then to Smashed director James Ponsoldt who saw enough raw ability in Winstead to hand her the challenging lead role of Kate Hannah.

The film comes in at a slender 81 minutes, so it’s clear this was never meant to be a comprehensive breakdown of addiction and recovery. We join and leave Kate at moments that feel like they could be occurring in the middle of her story.

Sometimes that’s to the film’s detriment. We get hints at Kate’s back story that feel jarringly unexplored, and skipping past stages in the recovery process often feel convenient as they surely would have been the most challenging to portray on screen. The main focus therefore falls on Kate’s relationship with Charlie, and as their relationship and Kate’s career start to crumble there’s an interesting thread about how the honesty that comes with sobriety can be just as destructive as the initial dependency.

For what it sets out to achieve and the amount it chooses to portray, Smashed does a solid job – made all the more notable thanks to Winstead. From her heartbreakingly raw and fearless scenes as an unwieldy drunkard, to those with pain, anguish and struggle etched onto her face as a now sober young woman all too aware that her life is falling apart around her, Winstead loudly announces that there’s a lot more to her than simply being the love interest of a Vampire Hunter. Aided by a similarly strong supporting cast (which includes Megan Mullally, Octavia Spencer and a wonderful turn from Nick Offerman), Winstead doesn’t expose Smashed, but rather garners it more credit and attention than perhaps it would otherwise have deserved.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

 

 

 

 

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Filed in Movies Smashed

Smashed DVD Release Scheduled for March 2013

Sooooo happy about this news! According to HighDefDiscNews, Mary’s film SMASHED has a DVD scheduled release date of March 12, 2013.

The film co-stars Nick Offerman, Megan Mullally, Mary Kay Place and Octavia Spencer. Tech specs for the release include full 1080p Hi-Def video in the 1.85:1 aspect ratio and DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio sound. The title is available for PRE-ORDER over at Amazon with a $25.19 price tag. Below you’ll find a list of bonus materials set to be included on the release.

  • Commentary with Director James Ponsoldt & Actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead
  • Deleted Scenes
  • Two Featurettes:
    – Making Smashed
    – Toronto Film Festival Red Carpet and Q&A

If you want to order the non-blu-ray formatted DVD over on Amazon, click here.

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Filed in A.C.O.D. Movies The Cub The Spectacular Now

Sundance Screening Schedule for The Spectacular Now and The Cub Released

Sundance has posted the screening times for two of Mary’s other films premiering at Sundance next month: The Spectacular Now and The Cub. First, here’s the screening schedule for The Spectacular Now, which will premiere Friday, January 18 at 8:30 pm at the Library Center Theatre, Park City. The additional screening times are:

1/20/2013 3:30 pm
1/22/2013 Noon
Eccles Theatre, Park City
1/23/2013 6:00 pm
Tower Theatre, Salt Lake City
1/25/2013 5:30 pm

Sutter Keely lives in the now. It’s a good place for him. A high school senior, charming and self-possessed, he’s the life of the party, loves his job at a men’s clothing store, and has no plans for the future. A budding alcoholic, he’s never far from his supersized, whisky-fortified 7UP cup. But after being dumped by his girlfriend, Sutter gets drunk and wakes up on a lawn with Aimee Finicky hovering over him. Not a member of the cool crowd, she’s different: the “nice girl” who reads science fiction and doesn’t have a boyfriend. She does have dreams, while Sutter lives in a world of impressive self-delusion. And yet they’re drawn to each other.

Adapted from Tim Tharp’s novel, The Spectacular Now captures the insecurity and confusion of adolescence without looking for tidy truths. Young actors rarely portray teens with the maturity that Miles Teller and Shailene Woodley display, and they are phenomenal together. Funny, compassionate, and poignant, James Ponsoldt’s third feature again demonstrates his ability to lay bare the souls of his characters.

Also, the short-film The Cub which Mary executive produced and was written and directed by her husband Riley Stearns, will be screening with Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant’s  Hell Baby movie at Sundancefest. If you want to see The Cub, the screening times for Hell Baby are as follows:

1/20/2013 11:45 pm

1/21/2013 6:00 pm
Tower Theatre, Salt Lake City

1/23/2013 11:59 pm
Egyptian Theatre, Park City

1/26/2013 5:30 pm

 

Also, if you missed the screening schedule for A.C.O.D., click here.

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Filed in A.C.O.D. Movies

Sundance Screening Schedule for A.C.O.D. Released

Sundance 2013 will begin next month and the screening schedule for Mary’s new film A.C.O.D. (Adult Children of Divorce) has been posted online. Be sure to head to the Sundance site for more info. The screening schedule for the film is as follows:

1/23/2013 6:30 pm
Eccles Theatre, Park City
ACOD
1/24/2013 9:00 am
Eccles Theatre, Park City
ACOD
1/25/2013 6:00 pm
ACOD
1/26/2013 6:30 pm
The film’s plot is as follows:
Carter has spent much of his life mediating fights between his acrimoniously divorced, ill-behaved mother and father and taking on the role of designated authority figure to his carefree younger brother, Trey. Inspired by Trey’s sudden engagement, Carter resolves to negotiate a truce between his parents, a process that nearly unhinges him. Adding insult to injury, a frantic sprint back to his childhood therapist, Dr. Judith, reveals he was a prime subject in her self-help book on the “least-parented, least-nurtured generation” ever. Dr. Judith may not be able to help him, but she’s delighted he’s come back and inspired a sequel.

Adam Scott’s increasingly befuddled everyman is flanked by vivacious comic performances from Catherine O’Hara and Amy Poehler as his stubborn mom and sassy stepmom, respectively. Stuart Zicherman’s charming feature debut explores the joys and frustrations of life in a modern family, allowing that romance is never impossible, even for a hopelessly scarred adult child of divorce.

The Sundance Film Festival will run from January 17-27, 2013 in Park City, Utah.
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Filed in Film Reviews Movies Smashed

Digital Spy Reviews Smashed; Screen Crush Names Mary one of the Top Women of 2012

Digital Spy has reviewed Smashed and wrote that Mary impresses in the “raw drama”:

Winstead is fearless, playing a variation on her ‘good girl’ persona that feels absolutely real and painfully relatable – you needn’t have any experience with substance addiction to identity with her struggle. But beyond the terror of what the addiction does to Kate physically and emotionally, it’s her slow process of coming to terms with reality that gives the story both its sadness and its strength. Because we like Kate and Charlie, and their relationship genuinely seems to be grounded in love, we want them to be able to work through their problems.

Ponsoldt tells his poignant, honest story in unsentimental strokes, and his script is both sharply observed and consistently surprising. He offers just enough in the way of backstory to add shading to Winstead’s already nuanced performance, with a childhood weight issue referenced early on and Kate’s unashamedly boozy mother (Mary Kay Place) making a charged appearance later in the film.

Smashed is a smart, sensitive and appropriately uncomfortable watch, offering an unrelentingly clear-eyed view of dependence, both emotional and substance-based.
Also, Screen Crush named Mary one of the top women of 2012 in film and television:
Often we watch films in which actors portray those afflicted with addiction and there’s something so disingenuous about the performance — it’s either over the top, or clearly a sober person meekly playing dress-up, stumbling around in someone else’s shoes. Not so with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who gives what I feel is the performance of her career up to this point. As Kate, Winstead plays an alcoholic, married to her similarly afflicted husband (Aaron Paul), and while we’ve been conditioned to see drunk women on TV and in movies as cute and slurring, clumsy baby deer, Winstead gives us the antithesis with her brutal, unflinching portrayal of true alcoholism. In my review I noted that when intoxicated, her voice becomes something unnatural and inhuman, and it’s completely unsettling to watch. When alcoholism takes over, the people we once knew no longer exist — they may look the same, but their mind has been replaced by someone we no longer know, and just the same, Winstead may look like Winstead the actress, but in ‘Smashed,’ she’s no longer the same person, and it’s incredible to watch.
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Filed in Captain America 2: Winter Soldier Film Reviews Interviews Movies Smashed

New Smashed Reviews and Interviews

With SMASHED in UK theaters today, new interviews and reviews about Mary’s role in the film have been posted online. The first interview comes from HeyUGuys, where they talk about the film and her performance, awards buzz, superhero movies (and the Captain America 2 rumors), as well as where she sees her career going from here.

The UK’s The Week also says that Mary’s performance deserves an Oscar win:

This small, precisely observed portrait of alcoholism is “an unsentimental movie for the age”, says Stephen Holden in the NewYork Times. Reminiscent of the classic Days of Wine and Roses, minus the old-time Hollywood melodrama, “it is anchored in a solid, convincing performance”by Mary Elizabeth Winstead.

Playing Kate with resonant intelligence and healing humour, Winstead is “a revelation”, says Peter Travers in Rolling Stone. and
should be on the list for a best actress Oscar nomination. Together with Aaron Paul, “they are dynamite”.

Winstead is “never less than excellent”as the grandly unhinged Kate who ends up hanging by a thread, says Joshua Rothkopf in Time Out. The self-control in her performance is “astounding”.

BBC News also has an interview with Mary which you can view here.

“I’m very aware my chances are not very high so I’m not getting my hopes up,” says the actress, previously seen in quirky movies like Scott Pilgrim vs The World and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof.

“But it’s lovely to hear anyone say anything like that about a performance I’ve done, and I certainly can’t help but fantasise about the idea of being a part of it in some way.”

“I had seen Mary in big action films like Die Hard 4.0 and the remake of The Thing,” says Smashed director James Ponsoldt, whose work won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival last January.

“But spending time with her, I realised what a wonderful imagination she has and how willing she was to really prepare for this role.”
And finally, The Guardian has a video review that you can view here.
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Filed in A Good Day to Die Hard Film Reviews Gallery Updates Interviews Movies Smashed

New Interviews with Mary Discussing Smashed; New Review

A couple of new interviews with Mary have been released in the UK in anticipation for the Dec. 14 release of Smashed. The first interview comes from The Telegraph. Also, head to the gallery to see a new Mary shoot she did for the paper. On filming Smashed in 19 days:

The breakneck, 19-day shoot was, she tells me during a recent interview in London, “kind of eye-opening… it felt like acting boot camp.

Before this, any time that I auditioned to play somebody that had a dark past or any sort of troubled or tortured quality, people would always say, ‘You’re too sweet, you’re too nice, you’re too normal – you could never have problems’. And you can’t help but start believing that stuff.”

On how Smashed required her to be emotional:

“When you are playing someone who is dealing with issues on a really personal level, if you don’t bring your own issues into the equation, it’s not going to feel really personal to the people watching it,” she says.

“My issue that I uncovered in doing this film is that I have always been an extreme people-pleaser to the point where I have had people involved in my life because I want to make them happy, not because it does anything for me,” she says. “My whole life I’ve been like ‘oh I don’t have any problems, I am so boring’, but making this film I had to acknowledge that I do have problems and no matter how big or small they appear to other people, your own problems are big to you.”

Click on the link above to read that interview in full. The next interview comes from HuffPo UK where she says playing the role of Kate was scary and the advice she got from Bruce Willis on the A Good Day to Die Hard set:

Continue reading New Interviews with Mary Discussing Smashed; New Review

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