It’s been over five years since Gerard Butler donned his sparse Spartan war gear in 300, clearly demonstrating the joys of IMAX for fans of gory action, as well as those looking for a bloody but sexy treat. Over the years, he’s racked up plenty of romantic comedies and sappy love dramas, some actioners, the odd children’s movie, and even an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical. But after a one-two punch like last weekend’s Playing for Keeps ($6.1 million) and October’s Chasing Mavericks ($5.8 million to date), Gerard Butler’s career is looking a little green around the gills.
Still, I have a soft spot for Butler, and I’m not saying this just because when he slow danced with Tom Hardy in RockNRolla, Hardy looked like a baby koala clutching a particularly delicious eucalyptus tree. Even though I dislike plenty of his movies and actively loathe The Ugly Truth, there’s a legitimately charming dude under those poor career choices — and not the kind of gross chauvinism that passes for allure in most mainstream rom-coms. If you manage to ignore all the horny divorcées clustering around him in Keeps, you can see some sort of emotional warmth and genuine feeling trying to break through.
It’s in there. I believe it. I believe in you, Gerard Butler.
While some folks think 2012 signals the end of the world, others think it indicates a major shift in consciousness. A transformation. An evolution. (And some people think it’s just when the Mayans got tired of making their calendar, but I’ll be over in the corner polishing my crystals if you need me.) If you need any proof that people are shedding their skins like snakes, you can look to Hollywood…
Full Story »Calling Ben Affleck’s Argo a “terrific thriller,” one of the six Americans who managed to escape the U.S. embassy just as student radicals took over the compound by fleeing into Tehran’s streets has set a bit of the record straight.
Mark Lijek, who’s portrayed by Christopher Denham in Affleck’s awards contender, spoke out after attending the film’s L.A. premiere, giving his detailed version of events. And while there are strong parallels with the film, which began its release last week and has garnered Oscar buzz, the timeline of real-life events had some significant departures from the film, which Affleck starred in and directed. Still, Lijek did learn one thing from the film, which surprised him all these years later. (Caution, spoilers if you have not seen the movie).
The backbone of the story – namely, the idea of posing the six Americans as movie-makers in order to dupe Iranian officials and sneak them of the country – is in fact true. The movie version of events suggest the six “house guests,” who were holed up in hiding in the Canadian Ambassador’s residence, needed convincing to go the route of posing as Hollywood insiders. But the plan’s CIA mastermind, Tony Mendez (played by Affleck) had in fact presented three ideas, which the group accepted as the best option straight away.
“We liked the idea enough, in fact, that we chose it over two other scenarios that Tony also brought to us,” said Lijek in a first-person account of their ordeal in Slate magazine. “In one of them, we would pose as businesspeople, in something petroleum-related, if I remember correctly. In the other, I think we were meant to be teachers looking for employment at an international school. But those two seemed like throwaways,…
Full Story »Taken 2 grabs everything that was surprisingly enjoyable about the original film and batters it into the ground like… Liam Neeson beating up an Albanian human trafficking ring. The brute charm that the 2008 Taken found in portraying the Irish Oscar-nominee as an ultra-competent badass has withered to kitsch, and what’s left is tinged with even more xenophobia and weird paternal wish-fulfillment. Worse, the directing reins have been handed from greater Luc Besson protégé Pierre Morel to the lesser (but, granted, more awesomely named) Olivier Megaton, of Transporter 3 and Columbiana, and he slashes the action sequences to such incoherent bits that half the fights could have been shot on a sound stage thousands of miles from any star and chopped in after the fact. Why are we watching this again?
Ah, yes, novelty. It is still a kick, though with rapidly diminishing returns, to see Neeson as the tersely tough CIA operative turned security contractor Bryan Mills. Bryan’s relentless when it comes to destroying bad guys but pure pudding when it comes his apparently still teenage daughter Kim (Maggie Grace, who at 29 isn’t entirely believable as a kid still working on getting her drivers license) and ex-wife Lenore (Famke Janssen). Bryan isn’t fazed by the prospect of facing down a gang of Balkan toughs, but learning that his little girl has a boyfriend and didn’t tell him about it leaves him stricken.
Lenore and the man she remarried are separated, and Bryan gallantly offers to fly her and their daughter to Istanbul, where he’ll meet them after completing a short job, unknowingly making them all targets for the relatives of the men he killed in the last movie, led by Murad Krasniqi (Croatian Serb actor Rade Serbedzija, the go-to choice for playing sinister Eastern Europeans). Whatever the structure…
Full Story »
The feature documentary had a limited roll out in Texas and other locations in mid-July, but after expanding to additional screens in the lead-up to the Republican convention, it has reaped more than $10.5 million to date at the box office. (The doc is second only, so far, to Katy Perry: Part of Me , which has earned in excess of $25.3 million domestically, as the top non-fiction film of the year.)
Those box-office numbers could get a boost now that the anti-Obama doc has scored a high-power endorsement from conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch. The embattled News Corp. chairman gave 2016: Obama’s America his thumbs up via Twitter, even as questions arise about the veracity of the film’s assertions.
Murdoch said via a Tweet:
Just saw 2016. Truly scary if no answer. Every voter should see and decide for self what future they want for America.
Obama’s America is based on Dinesh D’Souza’s 2010 New York Times-best selling book The Roots of Obama’s Rage. D’Souza and John Sullivan co-directed and co-wrote the film, and the filmmakers said that Murdoch asked for a screener of the film, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
In part, the film scrutinizes Obama’s Kenyan-born father and his alleged anti-colonialist views. (What is now Kenya gained independence from Great Britain in 1964). The elder Obama’s views, according to D’Souza, explain why President Obama rejects “American Exceptionalism” and why the author-filmmaker believes he is aiming to “re-shape America” by reducing the U.S.’s overall global reach and influence.
According to the AP, 2016: Obama’s America also asserts the president’s views were reinforced by his upbringing in Hawaii, which was effectively annexed by the U.S. after the overthrow of its monarchy in the 1890s.
Obama’s father left his family when Barack was just 2 years…
Full Story »
What former A list female movie star best known for one very famous role who has crashed down to a C as she has got older sent back three bodyguards on her recent trip because they did not measure up to her attractiveness standards. She won’t be seen with any men she is paying for unless they are going to look good next to her. If they are willing to spend the night and have some fun off the clock, then so much the better. The fact that she has a boyfriend is irrelevant. She might be paying him too. (CDAN)
Who other than Sharon Stone? When Sharon Stone’s not hunting for furry animals to scare out of their coats with her ice cold cunt glare, she’s hunting for her next orgasm. Sharon is the only A-lister (she is forever A-list)I know who can confidently ask a prospective bodyguard during an interview if he’s opposed to frisking her body with his dick. And she’ll ask it while uncrossing her legs.
Single Guy and Married Couple have been friends for a long time. You will often catch pretty photos of them hanging out together every couple of months. No, this isn’t going where you think it’s going. They are not a threesome. Nor is Single Guy romantically involved with Married Girl. However, they do have a very interesting arrangement.
Single Guy is quite
…
Full Story »James Cameron’s Titanic is a stunningly realistic portrayal of a sinking ship, but apparently it just got more real for at least a handful of people. According to some tweets that are making the rounds, some younger Americans had no idea until now that the “unsinkable” cruise liner existed and did in fact hit an iceberg and sink in the Atlantic 100 years ago. What? They didn’t watch Downton Abbey and put two and two together either? (Note: Just like the deceased would-be heirs of Downton, Jack and Rose are fictional. Though something tells us many of the Titanic’s passengers probably had acting abilities comparable to Billy Zane’s.)
Instead of ridiculing these youths for being ignorant of a fairly remarkable historic event and complaining about Idiocracy becoming more factual each day, let’s turn this into a teaching moment. Here are nine other films that depict a very real thing that happened in human history:
Pearl Harbor
In case the reference didn’t register at the time, there was a real Day of Infamy behind those insipid comments on Twitter a year ago about the Japanese earthquake and tsunami being payback for Pearl Harbor. Those jerks weren’t talking about the Ben Affleck movie, but a real military strike that happened. The movie that tells the sobering story of the naval base attack in 1941, in which 2,402 Americans were killed, was directed by Michael Bay (which seems like a joke but is true).
Apollo 13
The three-man crew on the Apollo 13 mission really did spend four bleak days in their spacecraft after an oxygen tank exploded on the service module. What had been planned as the third manned moon landing instead became a harrowing effort to make…
