For those up on what’s what, Entertainment Weekly made Mike Mills Beginners one of the things you “must” do this week. Well actually next week since it doesn’t open until June 3 in select theaters.

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Up on The New York Times Style Magazine T online site is an interview with and video from Mike Mills. Yuri Chong speaks to writer/director Mike Mills about making Beginners, including how he came to incorporate the various drawings into the film. Many of the drawings are now incorporated in a book Mike Mills: Drawings from the Film Beginners, as well as few online animated films. On the T Magazine site, you can play his Men (also tilted The History of Love”)––which includes a chapter on the “New Romantic” seen above. About this video Mike comments: "It’s a simple story, and relates to one of the themes that my father and I used to talk about: men who ask for too much, and men who ask for too little. Since my father came from a 1920s perspective, I always felt like he asked for too little. I always ask for too much. And so, I’m exploring these themes through drawing and Oliver."

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Summer is here and it’s time to get healthy. So NBCUniversal has launched their second "Healthy Week," as part of a company-wide health initiative to be held from May 21 – 27. And Focus Features is stepping up to the challenge with our own booth emphasizing the wellness benefits inherent in our upcoming films. 

In Beginners, when Oliver (Ewan McGregor) adopts the dog Cosmo, he is a model of how pet ownership can lower stress. And what about the poster for One Day with its stunning kiss between Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess––did you know that passionate kissing––and we mean passionate––can burn two calories a minute? Of course jogging on a treadmill uses up 11.2 calories a minute, but which would you rather do? We’re also holding a raffle for which we text winners telling them to come pick up One Day books, Beginners Posters, DVDs and more—and, of course, we urge the winners to run, not walk, to collect their booty.

NBCUniversal is hosting a number of panels, events, booths, and celebrities doing healthy things right in the middle of New York City’s Times Square  For example there’s the "Go Healthy Step-a-Thon" which encourages visitors to take a “step” towards better health. "The Go Healthy Step-a-Thon brings health awareness to the street in a way that is both fun and engaging," explains VP of Healthy at NBCU Debra Goetz. To learn more go to Healthy at NBCU.

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On the Interview blog, Mike Mills has provided a gallery of images from the album “The History of Sadness.” As he explains on the blog, “In our film Beginners, Ewan McGregor plays a graphic designer, Oliver, who's working on a CD cover for a band called The Sads. He's ends up trying to draw "The History of Sadness," which to me (and Oliver) seemed like a pretty funny record cover.” Check out the history.

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In the current Advocate, Ari Karpel’s feature on Mike Mills “It’s Never Too Late” talks to the writer/director of Beginners about dealing with his own father coming out at 75. In the film, Beginners, Ewan McGregor plays a similar character to Mills whose father (played by Christopher Plummer) comes out late in life. The story of men coming out late proves, as Karpel points out, more common than one would think. In the article he talks to a man who ended up divorcing his wife in his 50s to start being his true gay self. While suddenly getting a gay dad proved a bit overwhelming at points, Mike Mills is ultimately happy about and grateful for his dad’s coming out: “I’ll take the messy, crazy gay dad over the polite straight dad in the end.”

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On Saturday May 14, 2011, Lisa Cholodenko chalked up one more award for her family comedy The Kids Are All Right. The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (Glaad) Media Awards held at Marriott Marquis in San Francisco awarded The Kids Are Right (with Annette Bening and Julianne Moore) the Outstanding Film Trophy.

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Pamela McClintock’s Hollywood Reporter piece “CANNES: Tom Hanks' 'Cloud Atlas' Leads Ambitious Focus Int’l Slate” lays out the slate that Focus is bringing to the world's foremost film festival (and market) this year. On top of the list is Andy and Lana Wachowski and Tom Tykwer’s adaptation of David Mitchell’s best selling novel Cloud Atlas with Tom Hanks. In addition, Focus will be repping Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (with Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Tilda Swinton and Jason Schwartzman), the untitled Paul Weitz film with Robert DeNiro and Paul Dano based on Nick Flynn’s memoirs. And much more, including an untitled dark comedy directed by Dante Ariola with Colin Firth and Emily Blunt as noted by indieWIRE.

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In The Independent, Kaleem Aftab’s article “Jessica Chastain - Hollywood's secret star will finally be released” focuses on the star of not only the Cannes-bound Terrence Malick production The Tree of Life, but also her upcoming Focus release John Madden’s thriller The Debt. In The Debt she plays the younger version of Helen Mirren, a young Mossad agent on a life-and-death mission in Cold War East Berlin. Unlike many actress, she recounts how learning the fight scenes was in many ways the easiest part of the film: "Fight scenes are like a dance in a way, because you have to move to the count so as not to get hurt. So because it's like dance training, it came really easy to me."

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Mike Mills, who was in Minneapolis/St Paul to screen Beginners at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, stopped by the studios of the local TV news show to talk about his Dad, loving dogs and making Beginners.  You can see the full interview at Channel 11/ KARE site.

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Focus Features not only released Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre this year, but we’ve gone out of our way to promote the film wherever and whenever we could. As you can see Focus CEO James Schamus along with friend David Lee are in Taichung City in Taiwan to grab a photo op for the film at the Jane Eyre Motel. We believe their motto is “The Place to Get Moor Love any Time of the Day.

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