Articles in Film
Filed under: Casting, Celebrities and Controversy
As hordes of actors attempt to stave off aging, we watch on, amused. It’s hard not to laugh or snicker when a person who has clearly had plastic surgery claims that their face is natural. They might as well claim to be a relative of Stretch Armstrong, trying to feed us bull that their skin doesn’t fall and change no matter how old they get, that their chin was always that shape, their lips always that puffy, their eyebrows always that arched.
Filed under: Awards, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Oscar Watch
If Sandra Bullock beats Meryl Streep to win the Academy Award for Best Actress tonight, she’ll make history, because in addition to being nominated for Oscar honors for her turn in the football drama The Blind Side, she also earned a nomination — from the Golden Raspberry Award Foundation — for Worst Actress of the year for starring in the abysmally-received comedy All About Steve. Last night in Hollywood, the classy actress actually showed up to receive her Razzie award, and she came bearing gifts.
Filed under: Action, Deals, Noir, Mystery & Suspense, Sony, Celebrities and Controversy, Scripts, 20th Century Fox, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Politics, Comic/Superhero/Geek, Remakes and Sequels
Filed under: Awards, Celebrities and Controversy, Oscar Watch
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Starring: Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Crispin Glover, Mia Wasikowska Review: Sexual panic is the last thing you’d expect to prod Alice to get her ass down a rabbit hole. But, hell, this is Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland, not your third-grade teacher’s version. Scholars of British author Lewis Carroll (1832-1898) will no doubt shriek, “Off with Burton’s head!” for the liberties he takes in this 3-D mix of live action and animation. In the script Beast) has woven, often forcibly, from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, things have changed — dramatically. Peter Travers reviews Alice in Wonderland in his weekly video podcast, “At the Movies With Peter Travers.” For starters, Alice is no longer seven years old. As played with feminist fire by Mia Wasikowska (so… Rating: 2 Stars |
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Starring: Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke, Don Cheadle Review: Simultaneously full of itself and full of shit, Brooklyn’s Finest is a cop movie so shallow, dumb, derivative and infuriating that it feels like a parody of bad cop movies. From the glaringly obnoxious opening scene of a parked car with its turn signal blinking, blinking, blinking, to the spray of clichés that blast the audience without mercy, this movie is the cinematic Peter Travers reviews Brooklyn’s Finest in his weekly video podcast, “At the Movies With Peter Travers.”) We’re meant to weep at the tragedy of three cops out of Brooklyn’s hardscrabble 65th Precinct. Should Sal (Ethan Hawke) go on the take to support his wife and kids? Will Eddie (Richard Gere) make it to retirement? Can undercover cop Tango (Don Cheadle) come in from the cold before… Rating: 0 Stars |
Popularity: 1% [?]
Filed under: Awards, Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand, Oscar Watch
Did you hear about the brouhaha over a Hurt Locker producer dissing Avatar? Oh, it’s quite a fracas, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is taking it very seriously. Seems Nicolas Chartier sent an e-mail to friends and colleagues in the Academy on Feb. 19, basically pleading with them to vote for Hurt Locker for Best Picture. But he also made a reference to Avatar, violating Academy rules against “casting a negative or derogatory light on a competing film.” Consequently, Chartier has been banned from attending the Oscars on Sunday. If Hurt Locker wins, the other three producers will take the stage to accept the award, while Chartier will have to pick up his trophy later, in shame.
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Home Entertainment, Trailers and Clips
In 2008, there was an underground roar bubbling over the news that Simon Pegg, Jessica Hynes, and Edgar Wright’s Spaced was getting a U.S. remake produced by McG. As Pegg explained in an official statement, he wasn’t against the idea of American remakes, but he wasn’t happy with how this one was coming about. In the push to get the show made, they’d all signed away future rights, and Warner Bros. went ahead without so much as a consultation. However, although they didn’t contact the trio behind the scenes, Wright’s and Pegg’s names were used to promo the remake, while completely disregarding the essential contribution by Hynes. Classy, eh?
Filed under: Shorts, Celebrities and Controversy, Politics
Late last year, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sarah Polley made a 2-minute short film called The Heart, for The Heart and Stroke Foundation’s healthy living campaign. Starring Sarah Manninen and Jean-Michel Le Gal, the film follows a “woman through phases of her life” as she “explores the chambers of her heart.” Now that the short is just a few days away from release — slated to air on the Canadian station CTV during the Academy Award ceremony — The Globe and Mail reports that Polley is removing her name from the title credits after the discovery that it’s being used to promote Becel margarine.
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy
Yesterday, movie peeps were buzzing with the news that James Cameron’s long-time collaborator Charles Pellegrino was in some pretty big non-fiction hot water. Variety reports that publication of the book The Last Train from Hiroshima* was halted by numerous questions of the book’s facts.
Filed under: Action, Drama, Thrillers, Awards, RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy, War
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy
Now here’s a story that pretty much reeks of Hollywood bulls**t, provided Gawker.com has their facts straight. (And it does seem like they do.) Seems that Variety trashed an indie drama called Iron Cross a few months back, only to remove the very negative review from their website once the producers of Iron Cross dropped $400k in advertising dollars. Yikes. The full details are right here, but it certainly does seem like big V, a publication that likes to pretend it is superior and above reproach, is squashing legitimate film criticism in favor of easy ad money. And not just squashing — actually deleting!
Filed under: RumorMonger, Celebrities and Controversy
When it comes to honesty in Hollywood, I always think about the marketing machine and the stars who slap on that sparkling, smiling face to give their movie good PR. Every director seems to be the most original, kindest, or visionary; every co-star is the best to work with; every film is just a sheer pleasure … no matter how crappy it is. Once in a while, we get an unadulterated opinion, like Matthew Goode’s negative opinion of Leap Year as a breathe of honest fresh air. But in light of some new Hollywood drama, I wonder how Tinseltown would function if the pomp and circumstance was stripped away and honest truth remained.
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Starring: Tahar Rahim, Niels Arestrup Review: Oscar-nominated as Best Foreign Language Film from France, A Prophet is a prison film like The Godfather is a gangster film. Meaning this knockout punch of a thriller surpasses its trappings to speak in a universal language about the ways power corrupts the human condition. Newcomer Tahar Rahim is astounding as Malik, 19, an illiterate Arab who begins serving six years by bootlicking César (Niels Arestrup), an imprisoned Corsican crime boss. César tests Mailk by forcing him to kill a fellow Muslim prisoner. Arestrup is altogether remarkable as a Dr. Frankenstein outmaneuvered by the monster he helps to create. Director Jacques Audiard (The Beat That My Heart Skipped) scores a triumph of the highest order with the defiant poetry of his vision. A Prophet is a new crime… Rating: 4 Stars |
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Starring: Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan, Seann William Scott Review: Kevin Smith has taken so much stupid heat for being “too fat to fly” that it would be sweet to report that Cop Out is a return to form for the writer-director of Clerks, Chasing Amy, Dogma, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. But Smith didn’t even write this hit-and-miss gag machine. ( Peter Travers reviews Cop Out in his weekly video podcast, “At the Movies With Peter Travers.”) The credit goes to the Cullen brothers, Robb and Mark. Smith directs, that’s it, and oversees a fun rapport between Bruce Willis and comedy MVP Tracy Morgan as NYPD partners trying to track down an invaluable baseball card before getting killed by Mexicans and annoyed to death by a stoner burglar (Seann William Scott). An early scene of Morgan scaring a perp with tough dialogue from movies reminded me of primo… Rating: 2 Stars |
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Fandom, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Eat My Shorts!, Trailers and Clips
When Japanese visual artist Takashi Murakami set out to create a short film for the Pop Life: Art in a Material World exhibit at the Tate Modern, he enlisted Charlie’s Angels director McG to help bring his vision to life. And apparently, that vision consisted of turning Kirsten Dunst into an anime-styled magical princess and letting her loose on the streets of Tokyo. Behold the result: a sparkly, colorful, “WTF?”-inducing cross-cultural pop art explosion set to the tunes of The Vapors’ “Turning Japanese.”
Filed under: Comedy, Celebrities and Controversy
Every time a crappy film is riddled with talented actors, I can’t help but wonder what they were thinking. Is it a money thing? A favor for a friend? Are their tastes really that bad? And more importantly — was there no other movie they could have taken to get the same money? Every time these films “grace” the screen, I yearn to hear what the actor really thought — if they bought into the false buzz of their feature, or are just trying to grin and bear the badness. I wonder if they have to sit down and balance the embarrassment of the film with their need for cash, their morals, their tastes.
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Newsstand
Whether or not you want James Cameron to win an Academy Award for Avatar, you have to admit one thing — you’re probably curious as to what, exactly, he’ll say if he wins. After all, Cameron did himself no favors with his self-congratulatory “I’m king of the world!” pronouncement when he got the Oscar for Titanic, and he’s even admitted that he’s aware he has a reputation as an egomaniac.
Filed under: Classics, Drama, Thrillers, Noir, Mystery & Suspense, Celebrities and Controversy
With news that Roman Polanski has won the best director award at the Berlin Film Festival for The Ghost Writer, a film he did post-production on while “in jail,” according to star Pierce Brosnan in an interview with CNN (whom I also interviewed for The Ghost Writer), my own mixed feelings about the director are coming to a head. I’ve seen The Ghost Writer and I liked the movie very much, especially the more I thought about it. I’d like to see it again. I like Polanski’s other movies quite a bit as well, especially as I’ve gotten older and revisited them.
Filed under: Casting, Celebrities and Controversy, Trailers and Clips
This startling bit of video was brought to my attention on twitter from Hollywood Elsewhere’s “Arthouse Cowboy” and friend Moises Chiullan. It’s a series of commercials starring the late Jim Varney’s loveable country-fried icon Ernest P. Worrell, except that’s not Varney in the cap and vest — it’s Varney impersonator John Hudgens.
Filed under: Warner Brothers, Celebrities and Controversy, Distribution, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Movie Marketing
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Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Michelle Williams, Mark Ruffalo Review: Martin Scorsese makes movies as if his life depends on it, never skimping on ferocity and feeling. From Mean Streets to The Departed, Scorsese?s crime films turn the genre on its empty head, shaking out the clichés to uncover the violence of the mind. His latest, Shutter Island, sizzles with so much nerve-frying suspense that it?s hot to the touch. The time is 1954. The place is Ashecliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane, located off Boston Harbor on a remote island that?s locked as tight as Alcatraz. A Category 5 hurricane is brewing as U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner, Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo), ferry in to capture Rachel Solando, a killer of her own children who?s escaped from her cell. The Gothic terror kicks in when the storm literally breaks down… Rating: 3 Stars |
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Starring: Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan, Kim Catrall Review: In the craptacular month of February, when Hollywood typically drowns us in all-star drool like Valentine?s Day, it?s indecent luck having two films in play directed by indisputable masters. First Scorsese?s Shutter Island, and now Roman Polanski?s The Ghost Writer. The Polish director, currently under house arrest in Switzerland awaiting possible extradition to the U.S. for having unlawful sex with a minor in 1977, is in deep doo-doo. But not, in this critic?s view, as a filmmaker. The Ghost Writer, based on the Robert Harris bestseller, shows Polanski in brilliant command of a political thriller that ties you up in knots of tension while zinging politics and showbiz like two sides of the same toxic coin. Polanski, who won a 2002 Oscar for the Holocaust-themed The Pianist,… Rating: 3 Stars |
Filed under: Celebrities and Controversy, Box Office, Distribution, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Movie Marketing
Filed under: Deals, Disney, Celebrities and Controversy, Distribution, Exhibition, Newsstand, Home Entertainment
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Starring: Jessica Alba, Jessica Biel, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick De… Review: Just because Sunday is February 14th, don’t let Cupid suck you into crass commercialism disguised as a romantic comedy. Valentine’s Day is a date movie from hell. How did director Garry Marshall persuade a big name cast to stuff themselves into this box of rancid heart-shaped chocolates? I can hear him now on his cell to his Pretty Woman star Julia Roberts: “Look, kid, it’s easy money. You don’t have to work more than a day or two. There are so many big names in this thing the audience will forget if you suck in it.” Some of us won’t. What? You think these overpaid actors did it for their art. Or, my favorite feeble excuse for selling out, “I want to make people feel good in a feel bad world.” Ah, people! There’s nothing wrong with lifting spirits, except Valentine’s Day has… Rating: 1 Stars |
Popularity: 1% [?]
Filed under: Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, New Line, Celebrities and Controversy, Scripts, DIY/Filmmaking, Newsstand, Remakes and Sequels
As of 2007, it was believed that the much criticized and dreaded remake of Escape From New York was dead and buried once Gerard Butler dropped out. There was much rejoicing at the news. There may have even been quite the party at Kurt Russell’s house. But this remake is like Snake Plissken — it can’t be killed that easily, and believing it’s dead is just a big mistake. According to the Vulture Blog, Escape From New York is moving ahead once more at New Line and it’s no longer some hodgepodge prequel. (If it ever was.) It’s a straight-up remake.
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Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Benicio Del Toro Review: No fun either. And no real scares, which is more unforgivable. All the attention to technical detail (Rick Baker’s makeup is aces) results in some graphic and gory transformation scenes as Benicio Del Toro gets bitten by a werewolf (no, not Taylor Lautner) while walking under a full moon and grows more hair than he did in Che. But the pacing is decidedly drag-ass. The 1941 film version with the great Lon Chaney, Jr. keeps things moving over a zippy 70 minutes. Rent it and see, you can thank me later. This remake drags its ass over 105 minutes. And for what? Things take a turn for the pompous when we learn that Del Toro’s Lawrence Talbot has returned home to Victorian England to play Hamlet — of all things — on the stage. The Wolfman isn’t Shakespeare, and it damn well… Rating: 1 Stars |
Filed under: Drama, Independent, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Casting, Mystery & Suspense, Celebrities and Controversy, Scripts, Newsstand
The young and lovely Emily Browning is poised to become the next big thing — watch your back, Kristen Stewart! — thanks to nabbing some high profile roles right out from under other actresses. After replacing Amanda Seyfried in Sucker Punch, Browning has now replaced Mia Wasikowska in Julia Leigh’s independent debut Sleeping Beauty according to Just Jared Jr.
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