AOLR Weekly Wrap-Up #32

The Back-up Plan updates:

  • The date of the premiere for The Back-up Plan has been changed from April 20 to April 21. The venue is still Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. This does not affect the release date for the movie, which is still April 23.
  • Jennifer Lopez hosted last night’s Saturday Night Live and it was the second highest rated SNL of the season! You can judge for yourself how she did at NBC.com.
  • According to MediaPost, CBS Films will be advertising The Back-up Plan during the telecast of the Oscars on March 7!
  • There is now also an official UK Facebook page for The Back-up Plan.
  • CBS Films has released a new featurette from The Back-up Plan and there’s some great bantering between Alex and Jennifer! You can find screencaps of Alex in the gallery.
  • The French and Taiwanese versions of the international movie poster have been added to the gallery.

Other items:

  • According to the CAB’s 2010 upfront calendar, CBS will be announcing their shows for the 2010-2011 season on Wednesday, May 19 in New York City. Of course we expect Hawaii Five-0 to be among the series that will be picked up!
  • “At lunch with my mate Alex O’Loughlin. Always good to hang with genuine people in this industry. There’s a reason why they keep working! ;)” is what David Blue (Moonlight‘s Logan Griffen) tweeted last Monday. He then of course received requests for a photo (we’re so predictable!). Both gentlemen kindly obliged and you can view the image on David’s website. Judging from Alex’s position, he is the one activating the shutter (another one of his handy skills is the ability to take great pictures of himself with camera phones :wink: ). Please don’t repost the picture anywhere – thanks!
  • On Friday, February 26, The VRO hosted interviews with Trevor Munson and David Blue. You can listen to the recordings at Blog Talk Radio.
  • I’ve added 275 caps of Alex from Whiteout to the gallery and I’ve also replaced the previous featurette caps. These were taken off the Blu-ray disk, so the quality is pretty good and the caps themselves are nice and BIG!
  • As someone requested the poetry reading deleted scene from FEED, I’ve posted it on YouTube. In this sequence, Michael reads The Fly by William Blake to Deidre.
  • Additional promo pictures from FEED have been added to the gallerybig thanks to anagogic!

Articles of interest:

  • Aussie soap Neighbours writer and script editor Jane Allen spent three months behind-the-scenes with CSI last year. The article about her LA experience, Learning the Craft LA Style mentions that she also met up with Alex while she was there:
  • She visited her friend, Australian actor Alex O’Loughlin, on the set of his new – and, as it turned out, short-lived – series, Three Rivers, and discovered that ”Entourage is a documentary” as she watched the star’s personal support crew swing into attentive action around him.

  • Our Alex is also getting mentioned in articles that aren’t even about him. Here’s a particularly amusing one posted by TVSquad:
  • In what was probably the toughest pilot season casting decision yet, the choice of actor to play Jim Rockford has gone to… Dermot Mulroney. Yes, that’s right. Dermot Mulroney will star in the remake of ‘The Rockford Files.’ And, no, Alex O’Loughlin was not the first choice. Kidding! Just kidding!

[tags]alex o’loughlin, alex o’lachlan, the back-up plan, feed, michael carter, cbs[/tags]

Rare Images of Alex O’Loughlin from “FEED”

Two special photos of Alex O’Loughlin were made available today! They were taken on the set of FEED, when Alex had his hair and eyebrows dyed blond (and his chest waxed) to play the lead role of kooky killer Michael Carter.

If you haven’t yet seen FEED, the US and UK DVDs are the recommended versions to purchase (provided your computer or DVD player can handle region 1 and region 2 DVDs). The US version (distributed by Danger After Dark) includes the featurette FEED in Philadelphia: the North American Premiere in the extras. The UK version (with the “18″ rating on the cover), includes director Brett Leonard’s audio commentary. Brett provides a wealth of interesting information on preparing for and shooting the low-budget movie.

Many thanks to Nadioz for these rare photos!

alex-o'loughlin_feed-02 alex_o'loughlin_feed-01

[tags]alex o’loughlin, alex o’lachlan, michael carter, feed[/tags]

Hot Cuppa TV Has New Audio Interview with Alex O’Loughlin

Kate O’Hare (Zap2It  Hot Cuppa TV blog) got to talk with Alex O’Loughlin on the phone recently and included a link of the recording in her article:

Alex O’Loughlin Emerges from the ‘Moonlight’ to take on ‘Criminal Minds’

Highlights from the audio interview include a comparison between two villains, i.e. the rigid and OCD – but nevertheless sympathetic – Vincent in Criminal Minds to Michael Carter (“The guy was a little deranged”) in FEED (“not a very good movie”), and the news that when Three Rivers gets picked up, the show will be made in LA and not in Pittsburgh. When asked what he learned from Moonlight, Alex immediately responds, “How to survive working 90 hours a week,” and then adds more seriously, “How to be a leading man as well on a tv show”.

In her article, Kate refers to another interview with Alex that she published in 2008. The link is included in the line that starts with “My second visit is chronicled here” — make sure you click on that or otherwise you’ll miss it ;-)!

In case you have trouble playing the interview on Kate’s site, I’m including the link to the actual audio file here:

http://blog.zap2it.com/files/AlexOLoughlinInterview.mp3

If it doesn’t play in QuickTime, you can download the file instead with RealPlayer, which should work just fine. Mac users: right click on the link and select “Open with iTunes”!

[tags]alex o’loughlin, alex o’lachlan, CBS, criminal minds, the big wheel, moonlight[/tags]

Alex O’Loughlin Answers Burning FEED Question

feed-60

Ever since I watched Alex O’Loughlin mesmerize in FEED as Michael Carter, there has been a question bugging me that isn’t addressed in the movie. At the start of the feature when Michael arrives at the house with six cheeseburgers for Deidre, he has a ritual where he undresses, removes his wedding band and slips a silver chain with a pendant from a statuette and clasps it around his neck. He wears the pendant whenever he’s with Deidre throughout the movie, so it obviously has a special meaning… but I needed to know what its significance is, exactly, and what is the pendant of?

Well, this morning I grabbed the bull by the horns and PM’ed the best possible source in the world that’s able to answer a query like mine: one of the co-creators of FEED. Imagine my absolute and total surprise when, seated at my desk at the office late this afternoon after just having deleted another email in my Yahoo! account, the following subject line pops up, out of the blue, black and bold: Alex O'Loughlin has sent you a new message!

Believe me, the office is not the best place to be when that happens to you. No matter that you’ve received a message from “Mr. O'Loughlin” before. Forget poise, forget dignity, forget self-control. Where’s the diazepam when you need it?

Back to my message to Alex… Here’s what I asked (the relevant bit):

Just a quick question: I’ve been breaking my head over the pendant that Michael Carter wears in FEED. What is it of and what’s the significance of it?

And this is Alex’s response:

Hi there!
The pendant Michael wears is Mother Mary. He worships women in his own special way and feels he needs support and protection from the outside world. What better female figure to believe in right?
He also believes that she will help free him from his sins.
Hope you can rest easy now! haha
Alex

How sweet of him to care for my peace of mind ;-)

Below is a cap of the actual MySpace exchange. Times are local (at 2:33 AM his time is when I sent the message and I received his response at 5:41 PM my time), so it took him only a little over 7 hours to reply.

By the way, his answer also explains the significance of the statuette: it too is of Mother Mary. If you haven’t seen FEED yet, then I hope this post has made you curious enough to do seek it out — it’s available on DVD!

[tags]alex o’loughlin, alex o’lachlan, michael carter, feed movie[/tags]

feedquestion

FEED – Can YOU Stomach It?

FEED UK

Accidents do happen and if you’re lucky, there’s a silver lining to soften the blow. Since I accidentally stumbled upon Moonlight and its fabulous Aussie leading man, Alex O’Loughlin, a short while ago, I’ve been eager to view the rest of his work. With the exception that is, of FEED. When DVD cover quotes such as “Gigantically gross”, “Stomach-churning” and “One of the sickest films I have ever seen”, jump out at you, then it’s understandable if I was a little reluctant to slip that little silver disc into the DVD player. I finally got around to it late last night (after a good meal) and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised.

Or more appropriately: unpleasantly surprised.

Forgive me, Alex, but I was expecting a B movie with cheesy dialog, bad editing and ditto American accents. I should have known better — I got none of those. Described as a disturbing fetish thriller, FEED (2005) is an Australian low-budget production (directed by Brett Leonard) about a sexual subculture involving the (force) feeding of already obese women and the men who love them. They’re known as “feeders” and “gainers”. The antagonist in FEED is the American Michael Carter, a role played by Alex O’Loughlin, who also co-wrote and co-produced the movie. Michael runs a paid website on which he shares films of himself feeding such women, only he takes it a bit further: he feeds them to death, which makes him a serial killer. He attracts the attention of a Sydney cyber crime cop (played by Patrick Thompson) who himself is teetering on the edge a mental precipice after closing a tough case. As is required of all good thrillers, the cop has his own demons to battle.

I won’t reveal too much here about the rest of the plot, but will leave it at mentioning that the cop goes rogue and tracks down Michael. Although the ending is not a typical Hollywood Happy one, it will most likely surprise you. At least, it surprised me on several levels. FEED finishes up with not just one, but several nasty twists.

I was completely fascinated by this film. Yes, it has some scenes that are icky and that you don’t want to watch, but somehow can’t tear your eyes away from… like horrific traffic accidents or bloody war footage. FEED is also liberally peppered with black humor; I found myself laughing at strangely inappropriate moments. The filmmakers also make clever use of the pop songs to get their point across. There’s nothing subtle about this movie! And although Michael is the bad guy, you’ll most likely be cheering him on rather than the cop, whether you’re a fan of Alex O’Loughlin or not.

Alex is excellent in his role as a psychopath. Not once during the viewing did I think that it was Alex O’Loughlin on the screen and not Michael Carter. The American accent is natural and the acting never over the top. As usual, he draws from his wide range of facial expressions and manages to show different facets of Michael with each one.  Alex is not afraid to get down and dirty and has admitted in interviews that he likes to hide behind his characters, which, I think, allows him to immerse himself totally in his role and makes his portrayals true to life. Michael Carter is sharp, witty, attractive, boyishly endearing and scarily creepy all at once.

FEED improves with a second viewing. Why? Because once you’ve gotten over the initial jolt of shock, you can relax and simply enjoy Alex’s superb performance. And have a good laugh as well, because there are some really funny scenes in this movie.

Was there anything I didn’t like about FEED? Just a couple of small things, such as the house in Hamburg, Germany. Sorry guys, there are no wooden houses like that in Hamburg, you’d have to go further north to Norway and Sweden. And is it me, or did Michael’s hair look a bit brassy… just the wrong shade that made his complexion look sallow? Maybe it’s the filters used? I don’t know if I can learn to appreciate the orange glow this picture had.  Or perhaps it’s just that blond is not Alex’s color :-)

Although you probably won’t need a cast iron stomach to be able to watch FEED, it will help. There are plenty of gross scenes that will very likely make you queasy and there is a lot of violence, sex, violent sex, vomit, fat in liquid form, blood, gore, dismembered body parts and nudity involved (yes fan girls, Alex bares all).  It’s definitely on the other end of the spectrum compared to Moonlight.

There appear to be at least 3 versions of the DVD. The US version  includes deleted scenes, an alternate ending, a behind the scenes featurette, production interviews (including one with Alex O’Loughlin) and the FEED in Philadelphia Q&A (see below video). The UK version (region 2) includes commentary by the director, an alternate ending, deleted scenes, a behind the scenes final day interview with the director, an infomercial, filmmaker and cast profiles, a photo gallery and the theatrical trailer. There’s also a special 2-disc edition (region 2) in an attractive steel case with the trailer, an interview with the director, a Jack Thompson sound bite, the behind the scenes featurette, the alternate ending, deleted scenes and the infomercial. Of all the extra features, I enjoyed the interview with Alex, the Q&A and the infomercial the most. In the latter, Mr O’Loughlin is seriously over the top and loving it… which means that you will too!

Some FEED trivia:

  • Alex spent months doing Internet research on the feeders and gainers subculture;
  • The cop’s role was originally going to be portrayed by Alex and Patrick Thompson was to play Michael;
  • The movie was shot in just 28 days;
  • Because there was no budget for a stunt man, Alex did the jump off the balcony himself.