Prince Albert of Monaco and his imprisoned, contract wife Princess Charlene sat down for an interview with CBS This Morning and it’s exactly the kind of interview you’d expect from a couple who never fuck, can’t stand each other and are only together for image purposes. “Awwww, memories” said Katie Holmes.
When Holly Williams asks Princess Charlene how she’s enjoying married life, she nervously and awkwardly laughs before letting out some canned answer. If you put a microscope up to that laugh, you’d see the words “HELP ME! OR AT LEAST GIVE ME A STRONG ROPE SO I CAN HANG MYSELF FROM THAT BOOM MIC!” encoded into it. At one point, Prince Pierced Peen calls a time out on the interview while Princess Charlene wishes she can call a time out on her life. Princess Charlene is then asked what qualities drew her to Prince Albert and again, she laughs to keep from saying that it wasn’t a quality that pushed her into the arms of her husband, it was a pistol pointed at her back by an armed guard. An interview between John Travolta’s hungry hole and a vagina would be less awkward than this. It’s a mess.
As Lainey points out, Princess Charlene only looks happy when she’s laying her eyes on the hot swimmers. When she’s with Prince Pierced Peen, who really does look like a pierced penis head (swollen and confused), she looks like she’s trying to find a door or
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Also in this afternoon’s Biz Break: The breakout director of Animal Kingdom plots his next (possibly with the help of Robert Pattinson), Rupert Everett to direct himself as Oscar Wilde (with the help of a few friends of his own), and more…
Kino Lorber Wants You to Meet the Fokkens
The specialty distributor has announced a deal to bring Gabrielle Provaas & Rob Schröder’s documentary Meet the Fokkens to the US; the film tells the story of 69-year-old twin sisters experiences as prostitutes and brothel owners in Amsterdam’s red-light district. The doc will enjoy its Stateside premiere next month at the SilverDocs Film Festival before debuting Aug. 8 in New York.
Michôd, FilmNation Take Aim at The Rover
FilmNation continued its Cannes newsmaking streak, announcing the acquisition of Animal Kingdom filmmaker David Michôd’s follow-up The Rover. The story follows two men through “a dangerous and dysfunctional near future. Eric has left everything and every semblance of human kindness behind him. When his last possession, his car, is stolen by a gang of dangerous criminals, Eric sets off to track them down and is forced along the way to enlist the help of Reynolds, the naïve simpleton member of the gang left behind in the bloody chaos of the gang’s most recent escape.” Guy Pearce and Robert Pattinson are said to be in talks for the roles of Eric and Reynolds, respectively.
XLrator Floors It With Action Series
XLrator Media has announced the multi-platform TURBO by XLrator label, which will bring an international slate of action films to North American audiences. The first three movies set for release this year will be Naked Soldier (from Hong Kong), Blood Money (filmed in Sydney, Hong Kong and Miami) and Brawler (shot in New Orleans).…
Though it’s always a bad idea to review a director’s intentions at the expense of the actual results, there’s something about Paul Weitz’s movies that makes you want to cut him a little extra slack. Weitz, with his brother Chris, was one-half of the directing team that brought us About a Boy (an affecting and well-crafted adaptation of Nick Hornby’s novel), as well as American Pie (which, despite its reputation as a teen raunchfest, was surprisingly in tune with the complexities of sexual relationships as they’re experienced by young women). The pictures Weitz has directed on his own have been either unjustly overlooked (as in the case of the freewheeling satire American Dreamz) or justifiably lambasted (there’s not much to say about the icky gun-for-hire vehicle Little Fockers). But when Weitz is at his best, his films show an easygoing open-heartedness that more technically gifted directors – we’re looking at you, Alexander Payne – can’t even begin to muster. There may not be a single misanthropic bone in his body.
Which is a way of saying that the vibe of Weitz’s latest, Being Flynn, may have a greater impact than the sum of its parts. Jonathan Flynn (Robert De Niro) is an aging, crabby, racist nutter of a cab driver who’s convinced he’s the most brilliant (undiscovered) writer of his time: He’s got a multi-volume opus — with the rather ominously intriguing title “The Button Man” – stored away in his jam-packed rat’s cubby of an apartment. His son, Nick (Paul Dano), is also an aspiring writer, and he too is struggling to understand exactly how that shapes his identity. But Jonathan and Nick must suffer their respective delusions and anxieties separately: They’ve been estranged for as long as Nick can remember, and he’s been raised by his…
It’s Oscar Sunday! Keep track of your Oscar pool ballots with Movieline’s list of Academy Award winners, updated throughout the telecast — and chime in below with your thoughts on which of Hollywood’s brightest most deserved their statuettes, who gave the best acceptance speeches (and runners-up-caught-on-camera faces), and which were the biggest surprises of the night.
Aaaaand The Artist performed as expected (read Movieline’s review here), taking Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Costume Design and Best Score, with Martin Scorsese’s Hugo running a close second on the night with five awards of its own. And Uggie made an appearance! What were your favorite wins and speeches of the night?
Winners highlighted in bold below.
BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Guillaume Schiffman, The Artist
Jeff Cronenweth, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Robert Richardson, Hugo
Emmanuel Lubezki, The Tree of Life
Janusz Kaminski, War Horse
BEST ART DIRECTION
Laurence Bennett, Robert Gould, The Artist
Stuart Craig, Stephanie McMillan, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Dante Ferretti, Francesca Lo Schiavo, Hugo
Rick Carter, Lee Sandales, War Horse
BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Mark Bridges, The Artist
Michael O’Connor, Jane Eyre
Sandy Powell, Hugo
Lisy Christl, Anonymous
Arianne Phillips, W.E.
BEST MAKEUP
Albert Nobbs
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
The Iron Lady
BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FEATURE
Bullhead, Belgium
Footnote, Israel
In Darkness, Poland
Monsieur Lazhar, Canada
A Separation, Iran
BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Berenice Bejo, The Artist
Jessica Chastain, The Help
Melissa McCarthy, Bridesmaids
Janet McTeer, Albert Nobbs
Octavia Spencer, The Help
BEST FILM EDITING
Michel Hazanavicius and Anne-Sophie Bion, The Artist
Kevin Tent, The Descendants
Thelma Schoonmaker, Hugo
Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Christopher Tellefsen, Moneyball…
Meet Otis the Oscar Cat, Movieline’s resident feline awards prognosticator. Like the majority of Academy members, he’s white, male, and owns a black tie; his tastes tend toward the traditional, although he’ll bite at the occasional tasty treat. To get an inside line on Sunday’s Best Picture winner, we consulted Otis for his Oscar picks — will the Academy Award go to The Artist, starring that rascally pup Uggie? Or perhaps War Horse, by a nose?
Presented with all nine Best Picture nominees — The Artist, The Descendants, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, Moneyball, Tree of Life, and War Horse — Otis weighed each film’s merits. Treats were involved, but don’t we all get a bit peckish when sorting out life’s big questions? As he considered the nominees with care and deliberation, Otis went back and forth between his favorites before landing firmly, and with no outside influence, on his ultimate selection. Otis is sure that his peers in the Academy went through a similar process with their vote.
Otis the Oscar Cat considers the field of nominees.
He’s drawn to War Horse, but…
“The Descendants, man. I do so adore Alexander Payne.”
“All the other cats loved The Help; it ruined chocolate pie for me forever.”
“Hugo took me back to the whimsy of my youth, although those 3-D glasses are so very cumbersome.”
“This is hard, isn’t it, shadow?”
“Ooooh, Brad Pitt!”
In the end, there is no contest. Otis picks The Artist with two paws up!
“Berenice, mon amour!”
Bonus pick: A Cat in Paris for Best Animated Feature!
And with a beatific stare into the distance and a lock on this year’s kitty Oscar pool, Otis the Oscar Cat bids adieu until next year.
Full Story »*: As determined by Movieline’s Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics after crunching 23 weeks of data from the awards cognoscenti and beyond. Thank you for reading; our work here is done.
The Final 9:
1. The Artist
2. The Help
3. The Descendants
4. Moneyball
5. Hugo
6. The Tree of Life
7. Midnight in Paris
8. The Daldry
9. War Horse
What’s to say? The die was cast long ago, and unless all those old-ass, inactive white dudes who apparently make the Academy magic happen suddenly decide they want to recognize The Help (or come around on Moneyball a la some latecoming pundits or at least one old-ass, distaff counterpart), then you might as well just plan to go out on Sunday night to take advantage of the quiet restaurants and/or grocery stores. (And maybe follow our livetweeting here if/when the urge strikes.)
The Final 5:
1. Michel Hazanavicius, The Artist
2. Alexander Payne, The Descendants
3. Martin Scorsese, Hugo
4. Terrence Malick, The Tree of Life
5. Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris
Did we ever settle on how many of these guys are actually going to show up to lose to Hazanavicius in person?
The Final 5:
1. Viola Davis, The Help
1. Meryl Streep, The Iron Lady
3. Michelle Williams, My Week With Marilyn
4. Rooney Mara, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
5. Glenn Close, Albert Nobbs
Sasha Stone wrote a few days ago about the “general consensus” solidifying around some shakier frontrunners; Davis seems the most locked-in of that class. Anything could still happen this weekend, which is fine by me as long…
Full Story »Break out the $5 bubbly and tuxedo tee-shirts: the 2nd Annual YouReviewer Awards are a mere day away, and our friends at ENTV are rolling out the red carpet as some of the biggest names on YouTube honor the year’s best movies.
The YouReviewer Awards, hosted by YouTube film critic superstars Jeremy Jahns and The Schmoes, are the only by the people, for the people film awards on the Internet. Fellow cinephiles Catherine Reitman, Grace Randolph Chris Stuckman, among many others, will present awards at the event, and the winners will be decided by the YouTube community — all 800 million monthly unique users strong.
Don’t miss a second of the action — subscribe to ENTV today to catch the awards when they premiere tomorrow evening, and sound off on the results with the rest of the YouReviewer community.
The Schmoes Know YouTube Channel
The 2nd Annual YouReviewer Movie Awards
Presented by ENTV
Hosted by Jeremy Jahns and The Schmoes
With Appearances By
Brett Erlich (Viral Video Film School)
Grace Randolph (Beyond The Trailer)
Special Appearances by
Celebrity Appearances by
Johnny Knoxville
Katee Sackhoff
Iliza Shelsinger
Tom Arnold & Bonnie Somerville
Steve Rannazzisi
Bobby Lee
Chris D’Elia
2012 YouReviewer Award Nominees:
BEST PICTURE
Drive
50/50
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes
The Artist
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Pt. 2
…
“Let’s have a moment of silence for the suffering Oscar bloggers as they enter the most trying and mortifying weeks of their labors.” Such was Glenn Kenny’s tweeted lament earlier this week — one eerily anticipating today’s latest, sanity-thrashing edition of Oscar Index. And that’s just its effect on readers! You really don’t want to see the catatonic pall saturating Movieline’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. On the other hand, we’re gonna make a fortune recycling this mounting pile of wine bottles. To the Index!
The Final 9:
1. The Artist
2. The Help
3. The Descendants
4. Hugo
5. Moneyball
6. The Tree of Life
7. Midnight in Paris
8. The Daldry
9. War Horse
Some shuffling in the ranks reflected little more than two things: 1) The profile boosts that certain films’ respective individual nominees received in the acting and directing categories, and 2) our arrival at the harsh depot known as Smug City — an awards-season juncture to which we return seemingly every year now, described this time around by EW’s Owen Gleiberman:
The audience — remember them? — is no longer a very big part of the equation. I had assumed, mistakenly, that because The Help was an astonishingly big hit, and because its success sprung from the way that it clearly touched a racial-cultural nerve in people, that the movie’s organic popularity — as opposed to the heavily marketed freeze-dried quasi-popularity of The Artist — would be decisive at the Academy Awards. But all I was demonstrating was a mode of analysis about how the Oscars work that is now, more or less, completely outmoded.
Seriously, you’ve heard this all before: Gleiberman goes on to contrast the populist glories…
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