Last month, MKAshley held a contest to win a copy of the DVD The Wackness, starring Josh Peck, Ben Kingsley, Fame Janssen and Mary-Kate Olsen!

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

The winner was drawn randomly from all the entrants using a random number generator. Anna’s name was drawn from all the entrants! Congrats Anna!

The Wackness is a coming-of-age tale sent in 1994 in New York City. Recent high school graduate, Luke (played by Josh Peck) navigates his way through an unforgettable summer that wooing the girl of his dreams, dealing drugs to people like Union, a flower child played by MK, and more.

The DVD and Blu-Ray are currently available on Amazon.

The DVD for The Wackness came out today! In honor of that, MKAshley is giving away a free copy.

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

The Wackness is a coming-of-age tale set in New York City in the early nineties. Josh Peck plays Luke Shapiro, a lonely teenager who, in the first summer after high school, takes on an interesting part-time job to make some cash. Along the way to self-discovery, he starts hanging out with his high school crush, Stephanie, played by Olivia Thirlby, as well as his shrink, played by Ben Kingsley.

Mary-Kate Olsen plays one of Luke’s loyal customers, a hippie chick named Union. Her role is small, but MK absolutely transforms. And you can’t forget about the infamous kissing scene with Ben Kingsley?!

The DVD includes extras such as deleted scenes, two mini-documentaries- “Keeping it Real” which looks at a day in the life of writer/director Jonathan Levine, and “Time in a Bottle” which looks at the behind the scenes happening on the set of The Wackness, the first episode of “The Luke Shapiro Show” and commentary from Jonathan Levine and star Josh Peck.

To enter, all you have to do is comment on this post and leave a valid email address. Answer the following question:

What sort of role do you want to see Mary-Kate do next?

The contest will close January 31st at 11:59pm.

Good luck!

Mary-Kate Olsen had a breakout year in 2008, elevating her status as both an actress and a fashion designer. Here’s a look back at her top five moments of the past year.

Do you agree? Disagree? What Mary-Kate moments should-and shouldn’t?-be on the list? Let me know in the comments!

5) Gracing the cover of Elle

Mary-Kate looked confident and beautiful on the cover of Elle. She was on the cover of the US version in July and the UK version in September. While Elle consistently places hot celebrities on their covers, choosing Mary-Kate showed the world the power and passion the pint-sized mogul has as well as further defining MK’s relevance and appeal as a fashion designer and trend-setter.

4) Her relationship with Nate Lowman

Stepping out with boyfriend Nate Lowman may not seem like the biggest deal. But for the first time in a long time, MK seems happy, healthy, confident and in love-and doesn’t care who knows it! While the couple remains extremely private, their occasional PDA and public outings together shows me that MK has a boyfriend who care about her and is there for her and she has a relationship she’s proud of.

3) Launching Influence

Mary-Kate and sister Ashley broke the rules with their fashion book Influence. It was more than a celebrity memoir, it was an introspective look at several people who have not only shaped MK and Ashley as people, but the fashion world as a whole, receiving rave reviews from fans and critics alike. Except more celebrity projects in the future to be less about the celebrities themselves and have the substance, insight and intelligence of this beautiful book.

2) Her guest appearance on Samantha Who?

2008 was the year MK got back into acting. Her one episode stint on Samantha Who? showed the world she can do comedy as well as drama and can fit seamlessly into a cast of characters. Because of her fame, MK is often noted for the fact she’s in a television show or film moreso than her actual appearance. Mary-Kate’s appearance in Samantha Who? elevated the episode and proved she did belong.

1) Her role in The Wackness

The Wackness was a great coming-of-age film that got tons of buzz when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, then died a quiet little death in theatres. However, that’s not what’s important. What is is that is showed the industry that Mary-Kate is serious about this newfound passion for acting. She chose a risky role that could have backfired. Instead, it showed her gustiness, determination and talent, and proved we should expect more from Mary-Kate in the future.

The Wackness, the 1990s coming-of-age tale starring Josh Peck, Olivia Thrilby, Ben Kingsley, Famke Janssen and Mary-Kate Olsen will be available on DVD and Blu-Ray on January 6th!

Image: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

The Wackness is about Luke Shapiro, a teenager who takes on a different kind of summer job and his adventures with his shrink and his quest to woo the girl of his dreams, Stephanie. Mary-Kate plays a hippie named Union, who is one of Luke’s customers.

The DVD will feature deleted scenes, two mini-documentaries- “Keeping it Real” which looks at a day in the life of writer/director Jonathan Levine, and “Time in a Bottle” which looks at the behind the scenes happening on the set of The Wackness, the first episode of “The Luke Shapiro Show” and commentary from Jonathan Levine and star Josh Peck.

The DVD is currently available to pre-order for $21.99 from Amazon.

Mary-Kate Olsen has been doing a lot of press lately. This week, Pop Sugar UK caught up with her as she chatted about The Wackness.

Image used with permission from Sony Pictures Classics

As we know, Mary-Kate is seriously pursuing acting now. However, her years as a child star didn’t exactly spawn this new-found passion.

“I was never challenged when it came to acting when I was younger and I sort of just did whatever was given to me without asking questions,” she said to Pop Sugar. “I didn’t really understand why I enjoyed it or why I did it and I guess I wasn’t quite sure about it anymore. I made the decision to take acting seriously after high school. When I was in my Freshman year at college (at NYU) I took some acting classes and found that I fell in love with acting again.”

The interview is all about the film, what it was like to work with Ben Kingsley and Jonthan Levine and how she feels about her character, Union.

Read it for yourself here.

The Wackness premieres in the UK on August 29.

In honor of the Irish premiere of The Wackness, starring Ben Kingsley, Josh Peck, Olivia Thirlby and Mary-Kate Olsen, Movies.ie interviewed Mary-Kate about her experience filming the movie. They chat about working with Ben Kingsley, MK’s infamous kissing scene, being constantly followed by the paparazzi, and where she sees her career going.

I love this quote about her professional limits. When asked what MK would and would not do for her career:

“I’m never going on the cover of Maxim - at all!” she said. “I only go along with what I am comfortable with.”

There isn’t anything new in the interview, but it’s good to see that Mary-Kate is dedicated to the marketing of the film. She’s serious about her acting career and tirelessly working to promote herself and her movies will only do her good.

You can read the interview for yourself here.

The Wackness premieres in Ireland on August 29.

Mary-Kate Olsen is only in The Wackness for nine minutes. She’s featured in two scenes and in both scenes, her character, Union, is stoned out of her mind. I think MK did a great job in her role, but I think it’s weird that the media and the studio hyped her perfomance in the film so much and she’s in it so little.

The video below is her first scene in the film. It’s early in the movie and Stephanie, Luke’s love interest, just found out that Luke is a dealer. MK is one of his regular clients.

The video below is her second, and final, scene in the film. This scene is much longer and it’s the infamous bar scene wherein she makes out with Ben Kingsley’s character.

What do you think of Mary-Kate’s performance? What sort of role do you think she should take on next?

In its limited NYC- and LA-only release, The Wackness did quite well over the holiday weekend, averaging $24,177 in six theatres. It made $145,064 overall, according to Variety, and had the highest per-location average of the weekend!

Image details: “The Wackness” 2008 Sundance Portrait Shoot served by picapp.com

These stats are promising for a wider release later this summer. The biggest winner at the box office this weekend was Hancock starring Will Smith.

Jonathan Levine and his cast and crew should be proud of their success this weekend! Congrats to them and I loom forward to when the movie finally comes to Toronto!

The Wackness was shown at the Los Angeles Film Festival last week (Hilary Duff went and saw it!). At the awards ceremony last night, it was revealed that director and writer Jonathan Levine won won the audience award for narrative feature directing!

Image details: "The Wackness" 2008 Sundance Portrait Shoot served by picapp.com

Critics and film festivals have been loving this film! It’s a strange subject and even period to be set in, so it will be interesting to see how it does in theatres when it’s released nationwide on July 3. I’m really excited to see it and I hope it does really well!

Congrats to Jonathan and the entire cast and crew for their award!!

Mary-Kate Olsen’s press junket for The Wackness continues as The Wall Street Journal published an interview with her today. She talks about The Wackness, her character Union, and her upcoming book she co-authored with Ashley.

Image details: The Cinema Society and Sony Cierge Host a Screening of "The Wackness" served by picapp.com

It’s a very brief interview, but MK does offer some sage business advice in it:

“Listen, and don’t act on impulse.”

To read the full interview for yourself, click here.