You know who probably wishes he was a little bit taller, and wishes he was a baller? BILBO BAGGINS, that’s who! Which is why it’s so genius that the good folks over at NextMovie tapped rapper Skee-Lo to critique Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, which incidentally now has the best pull-quote of the year: “The Hobbit,” proclaims Skee-Lo, “is a G.”
In other news, Skee-Lo (AKA Antoine Roundtree) has a new album. And a girl! Dreams do come true.
[via NextMovie]
If you’d like one good reason to see Killing Them Softly in spite of its F Cinemascore and anemic opening box-office numbers, I’ll give you a great one: Scoot McNairy’s portrayal of the tragi-comic hood Frankie in Andrew Dominik’s contemporary film noir is the kind of breakthrough performance that will stick with you long after the financials are forgotten.
Movieline talked to McNairy about the path that led him to work with Dominik and Brad Pitt, and his busy work slate. The Texas native can currently be seen in the Ben Affleck-directed Argo, a job that, he says got with the help of Dominik. He also has a few scenes in the Gus Van Sant-directed Promised Land, which opens on Dec. 28, and, next up, are two films with Michael Fassbender and Animal Kingdom director David Michod’s The Rover with Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson.
Movieline: Looking through your credits, I noticed that you’ve done quite a bit of producing as well as acting.
Scoot McNairy: Yeah, it’s funny. I got into producing from having done commercials for so long. I was financially stable at the time, and I had so much time on my hands that I just got bored and said I can’t be sitting around. I figured that I could at least be putting together projects or looking for material for me to do. I felt like I should just be generating my own work.
Tell me a little bit about yourself. Where are you from and how’d you get into acting?
I was born and raised outside of Dallas. I did some theater when I was a kid. …
Full Story »There’s nothing like a good bit of alternate “What if?” casting to make you appreciate a movie whose stars’ chemistry works, so picture what might have been if David O. Russell had made his Oscar contender Silver Linings Playbook a few years back… with Vince Vaughn and Zooey Deschanel.
“I wrote this five years ago and I rewrote it 20 times,” Russell told The Huffington Post. “And I thought I was going to make it with Vince Vaughn and Zooey Deschanel before The Fighter. And then it didn’t happen, for any number of reasons that were out of my hands.”
Head here to read the full Silver Linings chat, in which Russell big ups stars Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence and offers little hope that we’ll ever see the infamously stalled Nailed.
Meanwhile, as awards pundit Anne Thompson notes, Silver Linings is flagging in the crowded Oscar race after enjoying a burst of momentum in previous weeks. Maybe a celebrity endorsement from Oscar-winner Charlize Theron will help? Here’s Theron waxing enthusiastic over Lawrence in EW’s Entertainers of the Year cover story:
“How is it that she can just stand there, not saying a word, and make us feel so much? Her talent is undeniable, and she is a force to be reckoned with.”
Theron should know; she starred as the older version of a pre-fame, pre-Hunger Games Lawrence (or vice versa — Lawrence starred as the young Theron, opposite Revolution’s J.D. Pardo) in 2008’s The Burning Plain.
[Huffington Post, EW, Thompson on Hollywood]
He makes one helluva pretty boy, but the consensus may be a bit muddled as to his female manifestation. Images surfaced of Jared Leto dolled up as a drag queen prostitute. No, it is not a career change, he’s playing the character in Québécois filmmaker Jean-Marc Vallée’s drama The Dallas Buyers Club.
Sporting a shaggy retro hairdo, a hint of some red Victoria’s Secret undies knock-offs and a faux fur of some sort, Leto is barely recognizable, but a peek at his toned torso gives some tease of his sexy self.
This is not the first image from the film to hit the internet in the last week to cause at least some stirs. Fans and mere observers alike were shocked to see pictures of Matthew McConaughey surface, which showed the actor’s new gaunt/sickly frame. The former Sexiest Man Alive lost 38 pounds, tipping the 6-foot actor on the scale at a slight 143 pounds.
Based on a true story, McConaughey plays Ron Woodroof, a drug-taking womanizing homophobe who was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS in 1986. He nearly died when he started taking AZT, the only FDA approved drug at the time, but returned from the brink after he smuggled in non-toxic anti-viral drugs from around the world. Other AIDS patients sought out his medications, forgoing the U.S. approved AIDS regimen. With the help of his doctor and a fallow patient – played by Leto – he unintentionally created the Dallas Buyers Club, the first of dozens that formed around the country.
McConaughey told Larry King: “I should not look healthy by the time I’m doing (the role)…I just kinda dared myself. I haven’t been this light since I was in the ninth grade. I’m kind of looking…
Full Story »Paul Dano says he plays “a bit of a prick” in So Yong Kim’s For Ellen, but pricks are humans, too. And in this making-of clip, Dano’s character — a rock musician who’s hit the skids named Joby Taylor — appears ready to regain some of his misplaced humanity. After agreeing to sign divorce papers in order to make some money off the sale of the marital home, Joby discovers that the agreement requires him to forfeit custody of his six-year-old daughter Ellen (newcomer Shaylena Mandigo). With his lawyer (Jon Heder) unable to modify the terms, Joby makes an eleventh-hour visit to his daughter and estranged wife’s home to figure out if he is able to walk away from his child or somehow reconcile with his wife. In this exclusive featurette, Dano and the director describe shooting one of the climactic scenes between Joby and his young daughter in For Ellen, which is available nationwide on video on demand beginning today. Spoiler alert: the crew had a serious cast of moist-eye after Dano and Mandigo shot the scene.
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It is certainly one of the most anticipated questions in recent casting memory. Who is going to play the role of Christian Grey in the film version of Fifty Shades of Grey. Two of the rumored top contenders for the scintillating part, Ryan Gosling and Alexander Skarsgård seemed a bit blindsided by the question at the recent Toronto International Film Festival, with Gosling giving a mostly noncommittal response, while Skarsgård gave a more thoughtful exchange on the red carpet of the TIFF premiere of What Maisie Knew. Fans can even be heard screaming out, “You have to play him!”
Hitting a red carpet event, Ryan Gosling looked a bit shell-shocked with the question that has lingered in the press throughout the summer. Will he take on Christian Grey, the young business magnate who forms a powerfully sexual relationship with Anastasia Steele in the 2011 erotic novel by British author E.L. James. Whoever the actor that ultimately gets/takes the part will likely see a huge onslaught of attention from fans of the hugely popular novel and likely follow-ups as the story, mostly set in Seattle, is the first of a trilogy (and as evident in Hollywood cash cows, trilogies can often morph into four parts).
“I have yet to read the book, so I’m not sure that I can comment on it,” said Gosling as he politely but decidedly stepped away. “I’m not saying no or yes.” Still, not saying “no” titillated the E.T. host in the video and so the Will he or won’t he question will linger on.
Alexander Skarsgård, meanwhile, had a bit more to say over speculation he’ll play the hot rich thing in the film version. He has yet to read the book as well…
Full Story »Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival is still days away, but festival-goers in Venice will catch the world debut Wednesday and already the film is making some initial waves with “raunchy” and “raucous” being just two operative words to describe the feature about a quartet of sexy college girls whose plan to rob a fast food joint to fund their spring break getaway goes awry. And that is just the beginning. The film stars Selena Gomez, James Franco, Vanessa Hudgens and Heather Morris.
Franco plays their unexpected savior – so-to-speak. A local thug, he unexpectedly bails them out of jail and takes them under his wing and even manages to win them over, leading them into the wildest spring break ever and into a bit more crime. In Venice, Selena Gomez who once starred in the Emmy-winning Wizards of Waverly Place acknowledged that some of her fans may find her role a bit of a surprise.
“Obviously I know that coming from Disney Channel gives you kind of a brand in a way,” the 20-year-old told reporters in Venice, according to Reuters.
“People do put a label on you. I know that I have younger fans, and this is an opportunity for myself to kind of grow. It is a little shocking, I think, for the younger audiences … but I think it was right for me. I did things I didn’t even know I could do on the movie and I do think it was because I trusted Harmony.”
Gomez had apparently been asked to play an even racier character in the film, but opted for the comparatively more staid Faith. The 20 year-old actress said that her character in…
Full Story »Aspiring actors are a dime a dozen in L.A., but few would go as far as attempting to extort one of Hollywood’s most powerful movie moguls for their big payday. (One would hope… but we all know a few kooky actors, don’t we?) Not so for Vivek Shah of suburban Illinois by way of West Hollywood, who was arrested this week for allegedly threatening Harvey Weinstein and his family if the superproducer didn’t pay him millions.
The Smoking Gun has the affidavit naming Shah, a 25-year-old bit actor seen on a 2012 episode of “Bones” and in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (per his IMDb page), as the alleged extortionist who contacted Weinstein and four other high profile figures threatening their safety and that of their families. Although Weinstein is named only as “A Connecticut resident and co-founder of a film studio,” Deadline’s Nikki Finke confirmed Weinstein was the targeted victim.
Above: Shah (right) posing with actor Donald Faison and Relativity Media CEO Ryan Kavanaugh at the Anti-Defamation League Entertainment Industry Awards Dinner at The Beverly Hilton hotel on October 11, 2011.
It’s an exhaustive document detailing the authorities’ investigation of Shah, who bought prepaid phone cards and debit cards, used multiple false identities, and set up foreign bank accounts apparently to receive the extortion moneys in locations all over the familiar turf of L.A. actors — the West Hollywood Rite-Aid! The Gelson’s on Santa Monica! — in what the affidavit refers to as “The Scheme.”
Most concerning is the bit at the end, which reveals that authorities who had been tailing Shah discovered that he was “scheduled for training in handgun shooting” at a local gun range after his return to the…
Full Story »Although Emily Blunt came close to being cast in two different Marvel superhero movies, it’s not until later this year that she gets her first action-type role in Rian Johnson’s time travel thriller Looper. But her turn as a gun-toting farm girl is just the beginning for Blunt: She’s currently in intense training to play a lethal soldier in Doug Liman’s futuristic sci-fi All You Need Is Kill, opposite Tom Cruise.
Set against the backdrop of an alien war, All You Need Is Kill (based on Hiroshi Sakurazaka and Yoshitoshi Abe’s Japanese graphic novel) revolves around a soldier who dies in battle only to wake up to re-live the same day over and over again – think Groundhog Day with aliens and Tom Cruise. Blunt will play Valkryie One, a highly-decorated special forces fighter who Cruise encounters while trapped in his time loop.
Blunt is currently training stateside before going to London to learn fight choreography for a month ahead of an October filming date. Speaking with Movieline over the weekend at Comic-Con, where she, Johnson, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt presented footage from Looper, Blunt described her regimen for what she describes as “the most ass-kicking role I’ll probably do.”
“I basically do ten workouts a week,” she said. “Two a day, five days a week – it’s hell! And I’ve cut out drinking wine, which is really sad! That’s the thing I miss most.”
“But I’m going to build these guns out,” she added, flexing her biceps. “They’re coming, right? I’m like that in the mirror. I’m just flexing over and over, and John [Krasinski]’s like, ‘Holy shit!’”
Why action, and why now? “Really, it’s about timing and about the right part, the right moment and…
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Years before Dorothy Gale plopped down in Oz right on top of that mean old stripey-footed wicked witch, a man — not just any man, but James Franco — accidentally found himself in the magical land, blown into a world of Technicolor whirlygigs and CG fairies by Sam Raimi. I mean, by a tornado. But as Raimi (along with surprise guests Michelle Williams and Mila Kunis) explained to the crowded Hall H audience Thursday at Comic-Con, his Oz won’t have that much to do with the 1939 classic; for starters, those ruby slippers? Nowhere to be found.
“It’s the story of a selfish man. A bit of a lothario, a bit of a cad, not a great guy at first,” explained Raimi of the fame and fortune-hungry Oscar Diggs (Franco), the small-time magician at the center of the Oz prequel. After landing in Oz and meeting three witches — Theodora (Mila Kunis), Evanora (Rachel Weisz) and Glinda (Michelle Williams) — Diggs uses his illusionist skills to pass himself off as a long-fabled wizard. As in THE wizard. Of Oz.
The script (credited to writers Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire) culls information directly from L. Frank Baum’s Oz books, but because of rights issues the ruby slippers made famous by Judy Garland could not be reprised in Oz. Not only that, the film won’t feature the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, or the Cowardly Lion.
No matter; Raimi’s got plenty else to keep you occupied, even if the first teaser (see below) is a tad underwhelming. Snatches of action and looks at the glam trio of witches feel Raimi-esque, and yet the entire thing feels as if the Evil Dead director were let loose with a few too many green screens…
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