BlackBook Magazine

The young actress has long been known as Sam Waterston's daughter. But, make room, because that is all about to change.

"I’m new to this," says Katherine Waterston, the young star of The Babysitters, a midnight-dark comedy featuring John Leguizamo and Cynthia Nixon. "I've done a lot of theater, and when you leave the stage, that’s the end of it. This is so much different. It’s just sort of shocking that this film is out in the world now." There's an excited lilt in her voice, bordering on panic, as she discusses her breakout role as Shirley, a naive high school student who, through a series of simple events, becomes the leader of a prostitution ring involving underage girls and married locals. The film, although thoughtful and challenging, won't be for everyone. Waterston's commanding performance, however, is so deeply felt and nuanced that it can't possibly be overlooked. In fact, her languorous—and then breakneck—transition from innocence to experience easily rivals those of Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood. Below, Sam Waterston's daughter opens up about law and disorder.

That crazy sumbitch Oliver Stone is really going through with it, isn’t it? Stone’s George W. Bush biopic W is officially underway and we’ve got the pictures to prove it. Well, Entertainment Weekly’s got ‘em, along with an in-depth article on the controversy swirling around the first ever movie about a sitting president. Have a look at Josh Brolin, (nearly unrecognizable is he) and have a look at Elizabeth Banks, the handsomest faux first couple we ever did see.

Who knew the ripple effects of Heath Ledger’s untimely death would make it all the way to the Toys "R" Us in Times Square? According to the New York Post, action figures modeled after Ledger’s Joker character in the upcoming Batman sequel The Dark Knight, have sold out. The dolls, which retail for $9.99, are going for as much as $60 on eBay. One of the dolls, an anime-inflected design for the kiddies, shares no discernible likeness with Ledger whatsoever, save for the shaggy locks. But no matter—his accidental death has launched him to icon-status. Mix that with the Joker’s canonical slot in pop culture mythology, and you’ve just made yourself a collector’s item.

The Tracey Fragments has a number of things working against it. There's that splintered-screen, Mike Figgis-meets-Jack Bauer aesthetic that seems to have audiences seeing double. There are those intimations of Dogme 95 that have Ellen Page's character chasing after her brother who barks, convinced he's a dog. And, maybe most dangerous of all, there's the ominous reality that, along with Smart People, this is Page's return to the bigscreen after her Oscar-nominated turn in Juno. There are curses associated with that sort of thing.

Actor Eduardo Verástegui looks back on life as a Latino pop sensation and womanizing underwear model, determined to start fresh.

“After four years of turning down every offer I was given, I went bankrupt. I didn’t even have enough money to pay my rent,” says Eduardo Verástegui, the star of last year’s Bella, a People’s Choice Award winner at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film, which centers on a day in the life of a professional soccer player past his prime and a pregnant waitress considering abortion, was a smash hit on the festival circuit. For Verástegui, a former underwear model and boy-band sensation, it was so much more.

The last time I was imprisoned in the waiting room of a hospital, I spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out how many Q-Tips I go through in an average month. Not so for Erik Luchauer and Kevin Antoine, brothers-in-law from Knoxville, Tenessee, who did battle with slogging healthcare monotony by creating Rootclip.com. It's a website through which aspiring Stan Brakhages are invited to add "chapters" to an existing short. Rootclip provided the first two-minute clip, an open-ended plot introduction, and users are asked to finish their story—one one-minute entry at a time.

Call it what you want: “bedhead cinema,” “Slackavettes,” or, its most widespread name, “Mumblecore.” There’s some DIY dudes carving their own little nook in the independent cinema landscape, making films that the Village Voice’s J. Hoberman describes as being, “by, for, and about twentysomethings.” Baghead is one such film. After collecting accolades at Sundance and Tribeca, it’s ready to charm recent grads with characters who stutter and say "dude" in an affectionate, East Coast way.

Here's the trailer to a new documentary starring directors Harmony Korine and Mike Mills, and artists like Barry McGee and Ed Templeton. We can't wait until its August release!

A little while ago, we told you about the powerhouse project getting underway in Hollywood. It went a little something like this: script by Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, directed by Sam Mendes, starring John Krasinski, Cheryl Hines, and Maya Rudolph.

Blake Mycoskie is standing outside of a movie theater on the corner of East 19th and Broadway in Manhattan. He looks scruffy in a manicured way, and he's wearing a pair of Toms shoes inspired by traditional Argentinian footwear—a combination of Tod's and tatami slippers. He's here at the Tribeca Film Festival promoting For Tomorrow: The First Step of the Revolution, the new short film he produced about his entrepeneurial upstart. It's part of the preciously titled "All Truisms" collection of films centered on world travel and benevolence. For Tomorrow, directed by Ken Kokin, chronicles Mycoskie's experience with Toms, and his first major "drop" in Argentina. You see, for every pair of shoes he sells at places like Nordstrom, Toms gives away a pair of shoes to a child in need.