Cinema Experts

“A lot of people say I've missed out on a lot because I started acting at such a young age. What's so obvious to me is that I actually was really lucky. I gained a lot and I got a head start in what I wanted to do in life. A lot of people in their late 20s, early 30s are just beginning to figure out where they want to go.”
Dillon was born in New York to second-generation Irish American Catholic parents Paul Dillon (a painter and sales manager for Union Camp, a packing material manufacturer) and Mary Ellen (a homemaker). In 1979, casting director Vic Ramos spotted Dillon while he was cutting class, and cast him in Over the Edge. The film received a regional, limited theatrical release in May 1979, and grossed only slightly over $200,000. Dillon's performance was well-received, which led to his casting in two films released the following year; the teenage sex comedy, Little Darlings, in which Kristy McNichol's character loses her virginity to a boy from the camp across the lake, played by Dillon, and the more serious teen drama, My Bodyguard, where he played a high-school bully opposite Chris Makepeace. The films, released in March and July 1980, respectively, were box office successes and raised Dillon's profile among teenage audiences. One of his best early roles was in the Jean Shephard PBS special "The Great American Fourth of July". The only available copies of this film are stored at UCLA where a legal dispute makes it unavailable to the public.
His next role was in the 1982 film, Tex, followed two months later by Liar's Moon, where he played Jack Duncan, a poor Texas boy madly in love with a rich banker's daughter. In the mid-1980s, Dillon had prominent roles in three adaptations of S.E. Hinton novels: Tex (1982) The Outsiders (1983) and Rumble Fish (1983). All three films were shot in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Hinton's hometown. The Outsiders and Rumble Fish had Dillon working with Francis Ford Coppola. He also starred in The Flamingo Kid.
In 1987, Dillon appeared briefly as a policeman in the music video for the song Fairytale of New York by The Pogues and Kirsty MacColl, a major hit in Ireland and the United Kingdom. In 1989, Dillon won critical acclaim for his performance as a drug addict in Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy.
Dillon continued to work in early 1990s with roles in movies like Singles (1992). He had somewhat of a career resurge as the role of Nicole Kidman's husband in To Die For (1995), as well as large roles in Wild Things (1998) and There's Something About Mary (1998), for which he received an MTV Movie Award for Best Villain.
In 2002, he also wrote and directed the film City of Ghosts, starring himself, James Caan and Gérard Depardieu. Two years later he appeared in Crash; Dillon received much praise for his performance, including Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe and Oscar nominations. He also co-starred in Disney's Herbie: Fully Loaded.
Dillon's most recent role is in the comedy You, Me and Dupree, opposite Kate Hudson and Owen Wilson. The film opened on July 14, 2006.
On September 29, 2006 the actor was honored with the price Premio Donostia in the San Sebastian International Film Festival.

“You're not anybody in America unless you're on TV. On TV is where we learn about who we really are. Because what's the point of doing anything worthwhile if nobody's watching? And if people are watching, it makes you a better person.”
Gus Van Sant is part of the fixture in American independent cinema and although "To Die For" was a piece of work that came from the studios, he films the story of this female go-getter ready for anything to accede glory and fame in a very personal way.
It's built on an alternation of present moments in which various characters who crossed Nicole Kidman's path talk about her and flashes-back that relate the turn of events.
Characters including her parents, her former young lover and friends express their thoughts about her without succeeding in understanding her. There, appears the first quality of Van Sant's work: the somewhat elusive personality of her main female character who especially manipulated her close relatives to go up the social ladder and to achieve her ends.
Manipulation is very present throughout the work with the conspicuous presence of TV and camera. And you have to see the contrast between the dynamic Suzanne Maretto (Nicole Kidman) and her rather listless husband Larry acted by Matt Dillon and especially the teenagers who hang around us like Jimmy Emmett (a young and good Joaquin Phoenix) or Lydia Mertz (Alison Folland). There, appears Van Sant's signature.
"To Die For" includes some of the filmmaker's obsessions revolving around an American youth who is adrift and lacks of marks for their future and security. What Jimmy and timid, hung-up Lydia need is true love, something that Suzanne can't really give them. And her plan to report on an American high school is only a means to establish a little more her galloping ambition. Van Sant will resume his set of themes about a ramshackle American youth and will hone it with his masterful "Elephant" (2003).
The choice of the scenery (Moretto's house) and the brightness of the cinematography, Nicole Kidman's make-up fuel the somewhat quirky side of the venture and Van Sant doesn't deprive himself of gently laughing at her female heroine. I dig the moments when she goes to the office held by Wayne Knight to ask for a job and ends up hosting the weather forecast on a little local area. A task she painstakingly fulfills. Nicole Kidman holds her role at arms' length and has a tremendous screen presence. It's just a shame that Van Sant doesn't emphasis enough on the madness that seizes Suzanne after the murder when she is interviewed by the journalists.
But see it anyway for Kidman and the manner Van Sant tells this story of ambition, manipulation and hypocrisy. And David Cronenberg has a surprising cameo at a well-appropriated moment in a vital step of the heroine's fate… 8/10

“Even from a very early age I knew I didn't want to miss out on anything life had to offer just because it might be considered dangerous.”
Kidman's first appearance in film came in 1983 when, as a fifteen year-old, she appeared in the Pat Wilson music video for the song Bop Girl. By the end of the year she had secured a supporting role in the television series Five Mile Creek and four film roles, including BMX Bandits and Bush Christmas. During the 1980s, she appeared in several Australian movies and TV series, notably including the soap opera A Country Practice, the mini-series Vietnam (1986), Emerald City (1988), and Bangkok Hilton (1989).In 1989, Kidman starred in the thriller Dead Calm as Rae Ingram, the wife of naval officer John Ingram (Sam Neill), held captive on a Pacific Ocean yacht trip by the psychotic Hughie Warriner (Billy Zane). The thriller film received generally positive reviews; the staff of Variety.com commented: "Throughout the film, Kidman is excellent. She gives the character of Rae real tenacity and energy." Meanwhile, critic Roger Ebert noted the excellent chemistry between the leads, stating, "...Kidman and Zane do generate real, palpable hatred in their scenes together." In 1990, she appeared opposite Tom Cruise in Days of Thunder, a stock car racing movie. After this, Kidman starred with Cruise in Ron Howard's Far and Away (1992). In 1995, Kidman featured in the ensemble cast of Batman Forever. On November 20, 1993 she hosted Saturday Night Live.
Her second film in 1995, To Die For was a satirical comedy that earned her praise from critics. She won a Golden Globe Award, and five other best actress awards for her portrayal of the murderous newscaster Suzanne Stone Maretto. Kidman and Cruise portrayed a married couple in Eyes Wide Shut in 1999, Stanley Kubrick's final film.In 2002, Kidman received an Academy Award nomination for her performance in the 2001 film Moulin Rouge!, in which she played the courtesan Satine opposite Ewan McGregor. Consequently, Kidman received her second Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy. The same year, she had a well-received starring role in the horror film The Others. While in Australia filming Moulin Rouge!, Kidman injured her knee; as a result, Jodie Foster had to replace her in the film Panic Room. Instead she was the voice on the phone of the mistress of Jodie Foster's character's husband.
The following year, Kidman won critical praise for her portrayal of Virginia Woolf in The Hours, in which the prosthetics applied to her made her almost unrecognizable. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for this role, along with a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and numerous critics awards. Kidman became the first Australian actress to win an Academy Award. During her Academy Award acceptance speech, after tearing, Kidman made a statement about the importance of art, even during times of war: "Why do you come to the Academy Awards when the world is in such turmoil? Because art is important. And because you believe in what you do and you want to honor that, and it is a tradition that needs to be upheld."In the same year, Kidman took a hand at film production in the film In the Cut. In 2003, Kidman starred in three very different films. Dogville, by Danish director Lars von Trier, an experimental film set on a bare soundstage. Secondly, she co-starred alongside Anthony Hopkins in the film adaptation of Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain. Many critics felt that both Kidman and Hopkins were miscast. Cold Mountain, a love story of two Southerners separated by the Civil War, was her final release that year, and garnered her a Golden Globe Award nomination.In 2004, Kidman appeared in the critically panned remake of The Stepford Wives alongside Glenn Close, Faith Hill and Bette Midler. In September of the same year, Birth, in which the 37-year-old actress' character has an encounter with a 10-year-old boy (played by Cameron Bright) who attempts to convince her that he is a reincarnation of her dead husband, was met with a mixed reception primarily due to a scene where the boy strips and joins Kidman in the bathtub. Despite this, the film was nominated for the Golden Lion Award at the Venice Film Festival, and Kidman was nominated for another Golden Globe Award. Kidman's two movies in 2005 were The Interpreter, directed by Sydney Pollack, and Bewitched, co-starring Will Ferrell, based on the 1960s TV sitcom of the same name; the latter fared abysmally with critics and at the box office.In conjunction with her success in the film industry, Kidman became the face of the Chanel No. 5 perfume brand. She starred in a campaign of television and print ads with Rodrigo Santoro, directed by Moulin Rouge! director Baz Luhrmann to promote the fragrance during the holiday season in 2004, 2005, and 2006. The three-minute commercial produced for Chanel No. 5 perfume made Kidman the record holder for the most money paid per minute to an actor after she reportedly earned $US3.71 million.During this time, Kidman was also listed as the 45th Most Powerful Celebrity on the 2005 Forbes Celebrity 100 List. She made a reported US$14.5 million in 2004-2005. On People magazine's list of 2005's highest paid actresses, Kidman was second behind Julia Roberts with a US$16 million to US$17 million per-film price tag. She has since passed Roberts as the highest paid actress, due in no small part to Roberts's recent devotion to parenting and broadway theatre acting rather than film work.Kidman has at least five movies in production over the next two years. She has completed filming the Diane Arbus bio-pic Fur, director Oliver Hirschbiegel's science fiction movie The Invasion and Noah Baumbach's comedy-drama Margot at the Wedding. She has also provided her voice for the animated movie Happy Feet. She is currently working on the film adaptation of the first part of the His Dark Materials trilogy in which she plays the villainous Mrs. Coulter. She is also set to star in director Wong Kar-wai's next film, The Lady from Shanghai and Baz Luhrmann's Australian period film titled Australia, which is set in the remote Northern Territory during the Japanese attack on Darwin during World War II. Kidman will play an English woman feeling overwhelmed by the continent, opposite Hugh Jackman.On 25 June 2007, Nintendo announced that Kidman is to be the new face of Nintendo's advertising campaign for the Nintendo DS game More Brain Training in its European market.It is reported that Kidman will star and produce in an upcoming romantic comedy film called Monte Carlo. She plays one member of a trio of school teachers on holiday who cut short their no-frills sojourn in Paris and head to Monte Carlo, where they pose as wealthy vacationers.