Joey King in "Family Weekend"

Joey King puts her personal spin on several iconic movie characters in her upcoming family/comedy farce FAMILY WEEKEND (2012), directed by Benjamin Epps and staring Mathew Modine and Kristen Chenoweth.

     Here's Joey as Iris the twelve-year-old prostitute from Martin Scorsese's psycho/thriller TAXI DRIVER (1976).

 

 

Joey as Malcolm McDowell in Kubrick's art-house masterpiece

A CLOCKWORK ORANGE (1971).

 

 

 

     Looking like a boy, Joey poses as the gun toting hood "Mr. Blonde," from Quentin Tarantino's gangster opus, RESERVOIR DOGS (1992). Girls with guns! Whoo hoo! Here's another screen capture of Joey as the punk from R D, this time a benign butter knife stands in for the more menacing razor.

      Looks like Joey gets lots of screen time and had a blast playing all these quirky characters.



Joey King in BATTLE LOS ANGELES



Joey King, the thirteen-year-old actress and star of RAMONA AND BEEZUS, made her 2013 New Year's resolutions. "Have fun, don't care what other people think and just go get them!"

Dakota Fanning "War of the Worlds"

     I finished watching (if you could call it that), the frenetic action miss-mash thriller BATTLE LOS ANGELES (2012), directed by Jonathan Liebesman. With Joey King playing the Dakota Fanning part, Aaron Eckheart stands in for Tom Cruise, and we swap out a different bunch of xenophobic aliens.  This WAR OF THE WORLDS / BLACK HAWK DOWN wanna be is about as un-entertaining and ridiculous a movie as they come.  It begins with a flurry of lame CNN style news reports about comets striking the earth (where have we heard that one before)? The aliens are attacking they're after our water and Joey King too!  This $70 million stink-fest of a movie is bad on so many levels I don't know where to begin. The cliche cardboard characters, dim-witted dialogue and herky-jerky repetitive "fast-zoom-in-close" reality camera work.  Whereas I can sympathize with the aliens for wanting Joey King, (she is after all unique to the universe), there are lots better places to look for water in the solar system than planet Earth viz. Titan or Enceldus. This isn't even a "B" movie, more like a grade "Zzz," movie and that's being generous. Poor little Joey gets precious little screen time and no dialogue, and she doesn't even get to scream her pretty little head off like Dakota Fanning. Looks  like  Joey King's  hairdresser for BATTLE LOS ANGELES interned on WAR OF THE WORLDS. Don't you just love a girl covered in mud?  Pass on this movie, no better yet run screaming!
 

Joey getting her ears pierced



Joey King method actress? 

 

 

 

 





Joey King as Iris in TAXI DRIVER





If your family doesn't stick together, sometimes you have to use a little duct tape. "Family Weekend" is the story of 16-year-old Emily who in a miss-guided effort to teach her family a lesson for having ignored her, stages an "intervention" of sorts by taking her mother and father hostage. She persuades her older brother Jackson to go along with the hijinks by letting him "document" the goings on to create the next great art-house movie sensation. She incorporates her deluded film-star obsessed little sister (King) into the farce by telling her she has been cast in her brother's new movie. Stockholm syndrome, chaos and  general silliness ensue after one of Emily's friends inadvertently "tweets" about the hostage crisis and the tattle-tale tweet trends world-wide.

 

    Here's a screen shot of Joey King's character from her upcoming family comedy/farce FAMILY WEEKEND (2012), alternatively titled, "Queen              Freaks," and directed by Benjamin Epps.  

Dakota Fanning

Jodie Foster in TAXI DRIVER

    














     Apparently one of the movie legends King's character is obsessed with, is Jodie Foster’s iconic character Iris the twelve-year-old prostitute from the 1976 Martin Scorsese psycho-thriller TAXI DRIVER.  Not to be out done, Dakota Fanning put her own spin on the Iris character. Ooh, looks like our little Joey might be getting a little chubby around the middle . . .  chubby in a cute way.











A Dark "Knight" for Joey King

Poor little Joey King let slip a major spoiler in the upcoming super secret The Dark Knight Rises franchise, and is likely to get read the riot act from Christopher Nolan and Warner Bros. after a recent interview with My Entertainment World. King talked a little about The Dark Knight Rises, but she also revealed who she’ll be playing . . .

     EW: Christopher Nolan’s Batman franchise is one of the biggest in the world, was it intimidating jumping on board for The Dark Knight Rises?

      JK: It was so cool, I had an amazing time. I got to travel to places I’d never been to before. Christopher Nolan is so nice, so is Christian Bale. I just had the best time.

EW: What’s your role in that film?
 

       JK: I play young Talia al Ghul. I can’t give too much away because I promised Mr. Nolan I wouldn’t say anything. There are too many secrets about the character and the movie.

 

     Oops! Well I guess that settles that then! It's been long rumored that she would be playing Talia in the movie, and now she's confirmed.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to put two and two together and deduce that Marion Cotillard will be play adult Talia. King also revealed that she has filmed scenes for the third Batman adventure in London and India. Ra’s al Ghul was Bruce Wayne’s former mentor turned nemesis, who was played by Liam Neeson in Batman Begins.

     I only hope Mr. Nolan isn’t too hard on the poor girl. Joey we love you! We'll come visit you in Spandau prison.

     The Dark Knight Rises is scheduled for a July 20th release and stars Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy, Gary Oldman, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Joey King and Morgan Freeman.

Joey King the Great and Adorable

      Joey King the talented and adorable  thirteen-year-old actress  of “Ramona and Beezus,” has two new movies in the can.  The first, OZ THE GREAT AND POWERFUL, is a  2013 Disney fantasy adventure film directed by Sam Raimi of “Spider Man” fame. The film is a loose adaptation from the L. Frank Baum’s 1900 novel “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,” and is a prequel of sorts to both the novel and of the famous 1939 MGM film.

      A hack stage magician finds himself unwittingly carried from Kansas in his now famous balloon to a fantasy world, where he must use his wits and his trickery to stay clear of the clutches of three witches who have various plans for him and suspect he is not quite as “great and powerful” as he claims.  Joey King plays a character named “China Girl,” a life-like  porcelain doll. Oz, (James Franco) a charlatan and snake-oil salesman rescues China girl and glues her back together after her family is smashed by an evil witch Evanora, (Rachel Weisz). The subtext here is clear, even if you’re fragile you can conquer great things.

     Even though Joey is credited as a character, she evidently does not actually appear and her presence in the movie is limited to voice acting with CGI providing her on screen avatar. This amounts to an overall disappointment. Hey, what can I say, we enjoy watching Joey's charming effervescence on the big screen.

 

     Joey is a very much in demand. Becoming the latest Hollywood “IT” girl. Her busy schedule includes the upcoming thriller, WHITE HOUSE DOWN (2013),  directed by Roland Emmerich and staring Channing Tatum.

     Joey plays Emily Cale the daughter of  a Secret Service agent who is tasked with saving the life of the U.S. President after the White House is overtaken by a paramilitary group.  Poor Tatum has the unlikely misfortune of having taken his daughter to work on his first day on the job in an effort to bond with her. King seems to have a natural affinity for playing the “little girl in jeopardy.” A role having reprised in “Battle Los Angeles,” and “Quarantine.” This time around King is taken hostage, and her presence naturally adds an extra strata of artificial drama as the stakes are now even higher. Our hero not only must save the life of the President but rescue his daughter as well.  We can only hope this result in King getting more screen time than her previous outing as little-girl-lost in “Dark Knight Rises.”

Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice

    With her flowing frizzy locks of voluminous red hair, Francesca Capaldi looks rather like a pint-size Merida from the movie “Brave.” Cesca is so adorable! The eight-year-old actress is very funny too, and is equally adept at playing the sweet “what-little-ol’-me?” card as she is  the slightly gullible naïve little girl who frequently miss-understand or alternatively gets words wrong to hilarious effect.  

     Francesca Capaldi stars in “Dog with a Blog,” as Chloe James the youngest sibling in the blended James-Jennings’s household. The role marks the series regular debut for the young actress. The James-Jenning family tend to leave her behind by accident a lot, and she can get in a lot of trouble!
   
      The writers of “Dog with a Blog,” have tenancy to play uneven with the Chloe character, in some episodes, she is hilarious with her spoonerisms, as in the “Sock-ologist” episode where she implores her father, “Daddy show them your socks.” And my favorite were when little Chloe miss-interprets Avery’s rousing “I’m Spartacus!” Chloe announces to her parents, “I’m asparagus!” Very funny. Other times the writers squander her comic potential as she sinks into cliché little girl annoying silliness with her repetitious refrain “I want to get my ears pierced!”
 

    Capaldi has previously appeared in episodes of Disney Channel’ “A.N.T. Farm,” and CBS’s comedy “How I met your Mother.” In addition, Capaldi was featured in the pilot for “Goodwin Games,” and Corbin Bernsen’s independent film “3 Day Test.” 

     Capaldi was nominated for Young Artist Award for “Best performance in a TV-series – Guest starring young actress ten and under.”

Crazy cute Joey King

Joey King (b. 07.30.99) is an American actress  born in California and has appeared in numerous television shows including: “CSI”, “Entourage”, “Ghost Whisperer”, “Medium”, “The Suite Life” and “Avenging Angel.” Her movie credits include: “Dark Knight Rises,” “Battle Los Angeles” and the upcoming “White House Down,” where Joey plays the daughter of a secret service agent tasked with saving the president.
 

     Every now and then, it's nice for kids to see a genuine movie without 3D glasses, whiplash inducing scene cuts, car chases and explosions. “Ramona and Beezus,” (2010) directed by Elizabeth Allen from Beverly Cleary’s popular children's book series. The film also stars Selena Gomez and follows the miss-adventures of a third-grade girl and her older sister. A nice little G-rated *gasp* family movie that teaches some important lessons. Joey King is the best  young actress to come along in years. I’m glad someone finally had the courage to make a plesant family movie that embraces decent values for once and avoids the tiresome and overdone potty mouth jokes and ridiculously unrealistic impossible action sequences that have ruined most of the family movies recently.
 

      The most interesting thing about watching child stars is figuring out their potential. They've already made a mark in the entertainment industry as minors, the huge unknown is whether they can survive the storm of puberty and make it as adult actresses. Some are cute but forgettable and mere set decorations. Others are preternaturally precocious but ultimately playing themselves, and some seem great at being the wise-cracking kid but can't seem to evoke any real depth of emotions. I will always remember Jena Boyd in "The Missing."  Now that girl could cry!

      I had the pleasure of watching Miss King on the Tonight Show. The girl packs a wallop of charisma and charm for a child her age. She's smart and intelligent and a very funny little lady. With her short-cropped hair and liquid azure eyes, Joey King, exudes a special silliness more in mannerisms than anything else that is reminiscent of a pint-size Carol Channing. I hope Joey doesn't loose her personality with age.        

     Want see the absolute cutest video ever? I've watched a lot of appearances of child stars on talk shows.   Fanning never failed to disappoint. However, I have to say, I haven't seen a young girl with such charisma and charm as Joey, well, I can't remember when.  The kid just sparkles! You watch and decide if this young girl isn't the most adorable little ol' thang to come down the pike in a long while. She's so cute you just want to squeeze her!