Interview: Karen Allen on 'Year by the Sea' and How She Grew Up Being Like Marion Ravenwood

By Jose Solís.

Karen Allen stars in "Year by the Sea," opening next Friday

In Year By the Sea, Karen Allen plays author Joan Anderson, whose memoirs served as the inspiration for a film that asks what happens to women after their kids leave. For Anderson the answer came in a trip of rediscovery that took her from her home, to a small town in Cape Cod where she learned how to feel truly alive again. Allen’s portrayal of Joan reveals new layers in her work, she has always been compulsively watchable onscreen, but as the quiet Anderson she is absolutely luminous. Watching her in scenes opposite Yannick Bisson who plays the sexy fisherman Joan flirts with, she shows us that sensuality should not be relegated to 20-something, scantily clad female characters, and in scenes where Joan spends time with her friends, we crave for more fiction where women of a certain age get to be leads, not supporting characters.

I spoke to Allen about playing Anderson, how the book helped her develop the character, and what are some of her favorite scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Read the interview after the jump...

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Tilt Your Head, Pfeiffer!

by Murtada

Mother! is my most anticipated film of the fall. And it’s so good that we don’t have to wait that long for it. Just 14 days from today it will be everywhere. The obsession is real, and for the last few days it has become very specific.

Of course it has to do with Michelle Pfeiffer. There’s a new clip making the rounds where Pfeiffer intimidates Jennifer lawrence about having kids...

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Say What?! Luke Got Lewks

Chris here. It's reassuring to know that we won't have to just rely on Laura Dern's mauve-haired character to serve us the fashion when Star Wars - The Last Jedi arrives at the end of the year. Mark Hamill is on the cover of Hungary's Mozimania magazine, and is Luke ever giving us a look. Here we get a detailed glimpse at how Luke Skywalker is holding up on that island mountain paradise - and there is a suspicious similarity to his now scar-faced nephew Kylo Ren.

But no matter the brooding, because who knew Hamill would be such a fashion cover girl with this Luke Lewk. In the comments tell us: what's his fashion catchphrase?

OTD: Vera Drake and Lily Tomlin

On this day (Sept 1st) in showbiz history...

1934 Metro Goldwyn Mayer releases their first animated short, The Discontented Canary. It wasn't Oscar nominated but they soon begin to crash Walt Disney's stranglehold on that particular category back then, with nearly annual nominations (for a time) beginning in 1939 (Peace on Earth) and regular wins in the 1940s thanks largely to the Tom & Jerry series. 

1952 Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea is first published. It wins the Pulitzer and gets adapted to the movies twice, the first time as a feature in 1958 with Spencer Tracy and the second time as an Oscar winning Russian animated short in 1999 which was painted on glass. 

1977 Blondie signed their first major record company contract. Whatever happened to that Debbie Harry biopic we were supposed to get? Wasn't it going to star Kiki Dunst or was that just our TFE fantasy?

2004 Mike Leigh's marvelously humane and potent Vera Drake wins the Golden Lion in Venice. The film is nominated for 3 Oscars including a surprise Best Director bid. Imelda Staunton goes on to lose the Oscar to a far inferior performance. We've been demanding a recount ever since.

Happy Birthday to Them
Oscar Nominees: Lily Tomlin (Nashville), Rachid Bouchareb (Foreign Film nominations for Algeria: Outside the Law and Days of Glory)
In Demand: Zendaya (Spider-Man: Homecoming), Boyd Holbrook (Logan, Narcos)
Other Famous Types: Gloria Estefan
Foreign Stars: Fengyi Zhang (Chinese movie star), Lhumnita Gheorghiu (brilliant Romanian actress), Mohammed Assaf (Palestinian pop star) 

Final Pre-Festival Oscar Charts

All Oscar charts have been updated. It's mostly huge gains for Alexander Payne's Downsizing and Guillermo Del Toro's The Shape of Water (both premiering hot with "masterpiece!" reviews at the Venice Film Festival) but there are also a few other nips and tucks on each chart given buzz shifting, release date movies (goodbye Mary Magdalene), probably category hijinx (Last Flag Flying, Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool, etcetera), and lack of distribution news for certain pictures. 

Check out the charts and report back, won'cha?

• INDEX • PICTURE • DIRECTOR • ACTRESS • ACTOR • SUPPORTING ACTRESS • SUPPORTING ACTOR • VISUAL CATEGORIES • SOUND CATEGORIES • SCREENPLAYS • ANIMATED FEATURES • FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILMS • FOREIGN SUBMISSIONS PT 1 • FOREIGN SUBMISSIONS PT 2 • FOREIGN SUBMISSIONS PT 3