He's 42; she's 15. How could anyone call that a love story? But for Vanessa Wye it is, from the moment her teacher reaches out in the middle of American lit and touches her knee. For first-time novelist Kate Elizabeth Russell, it's also one hell of a calling card: a sticky psychosexual debut with a seven-figure publishing deal and a finger pressed hard to the pulse of a cultural moment. Vanessa is almost invisible at her Maine boarding school, the kind of girl not shiny enough to be noticed by boys but too smart to chase them. Read More...
A 22-year-old afghan now living in Paris, Latifa grew up in Kabul with war raging outside her window. On her sister’s wedding day, 300 rockets rained down on her city. Still, she and her family lived a bustling if uneasy urban existence: Her father ran an import business, her mother worked in a hospital, and Latifa grew up listening to rock music and dreaming of being a journalist. But the violence of war, from the Soviet invasion to the civil upheavals, was nothing compared with the calculated perversions of the Taliban, which seized control when Latifa was 16. Read More...
As the director of Meatballs, Stripes, and Ghostbusters and the executive producer of Old School, Ivan Reitman knows a little something about making hit comedies — and the importance of casting before an inch of film is shot. (After all, our love for all things Bill Murray is largely his fault.) So when it came time to staff his latest laugher about Matt (Luke Wilson), an architect who breaks up with his frumpy girlfriend Jenny (Uma Thurman) only to find out she’s a spiteful superheroine, Reitman knew exactly who he wanted in the lead role. Read More...
