We can all agree that 2012 has been an excellent year for the movies, but the more salacious among us will note that it’s been an awesome year to perv out at the movies. Although we didn’t get another look at the Fassmember and all the conflicting feelings it brought up (Hotness! Confusion! Embarrassment at being psyched to see him naked in Shame when actually it’s really f***ing depressing!) there were some rather interesting trends that reared their heads that invite a closer look. Whether studios are getting braver or filmmakers are getting bolder is a debate for another time — and please don’t suggest that 50 Shades had too much to do with it. Let’s salute all the sexin’ that happened onscreen in 2012.
Hair Here, There, and Everywhere
Merkin-makers must have been counting their coins this year because going au naturel was all the rage, although I’m sure that the Brazilian waxers weren’t going hungry either. Neither of the leading ladies in Killer Joe kept their pants on the whole time, which wasn’t too much of a shock given director William Friedkin’s bold career. (Cruising, anyone?) The very first scene puts us — and Emile Hirsch — face to face with Gina Gershon’s lustrous bush* as Gershon throws open the door to the family trailer wearing nothing but a T-shirt.
Juno Temple is probably the most naked, though, as the uncomfortably young and dotty Dottie, who’s given to Killer Joe (the frequently shirtless Matthew McConaughey) as a retainer until her brother and dad can pay him for killing their mother. (Got all that?) I’m not sure if Dottie is psychic and…
Full Story »All right, all right, all right.
Awards season has officially gotten down in the dirt with a little bit of glorious stank. The New York Film Critics Circle, an august body despite three years of madness under Armond White’s leadership, has named Matthew McConaughey the year’s best supporting actor for his work in both Magic Mike and Bernie.
With this double-gun recognition, my guess is that the group felt this was a salute to McConaughey’s leading performance in Killer Joe, and all the forced fried chicken-sucking it included, too.
It’s quite a comeback. For years McConaughey served merely two purposes: appearing in dreadful rom coms like Failure to Launch and having a last name that drove copyeditors crazy. But we knew – we knew that beneath the skin of that shirtless Texan beat the heart of a courageous and unpredictable performer who could, when given a chance, deliver. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t been itching for an excuse to love this guy again.
McConaughey’s turn as Dallas, the “Den Father,” I guess you could call him, of the strippers in Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike, is now a genuine contender for the Golden Globes and the Oscars. (No diss to Bernie, but Magic Mike was a bonafide box office hit, has Warner Bros. behind it and, you know, ass chaps.) Plus he’s already gotten a nomination for it and Killer Joe at the Spirit Awards in the bag. Our suggestion to M-McC: just keep livin’. The rest of the world is now hip to how awesome you can be.
Of course, not everyone can recognize greatness when they see it. A sampling on Twitter shows jubilant critics (someone pass…
Full Story »Don’t use the term “killer whale” in front of Marion Cotillard. In her new Oscar contender Rust and Bone, the actress may play a whale trainer who loses her legs to one of the creatures, but at an advance screening of the picture in New York on Thursday, Cotillard told me she prefers the term “orca.” Free Willy the movie is not, but that didn’t stop Cotillard from bonding with her new aquatic pals.
In my red carpet interview, below, Cotillard also has something to say about Americans who don’t watch French films.
Cotillard looked stunning in Christian Dior, who hosted the screening along with Vanity Fair and The Cinema Society.
Rust and Bone hits theaters Nov. 23.
Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Follow Grace on Twitter.
Kidding! Michael Shannon was born to play oddball creepy-types, and I mean that in the best way possible. So his turn as Richard Kuklinski, the notorious contract killer from New Jersey known as The Iceman who killed for sport and for gangsters for three decades, seems fitting. Anyone else feeling curious pangs of sympathy for the Mafia hitman-slash-family man who claimed to have murdered over 100 men over the course of his “career?”
Kuklinski grew up in the Jersey suburbs with abusive parents before beating a bully to death at the age of 14; it was his first murder. His double life as loving father and husband and ice-cold killer is one of those fascinatingly true tales (read the gory details here, literally) and Shannon is one of a handful of actors who could probably pull off the dichotomy.
So I’m morbidly curious about The Iceman, even as the head shots and stabby glimpses abound in this first trailer. Shannon and his various period wiseguy hair co-star with Winona Ryder, James Franco, David Schwimmer, and Ray Liotta. Oh, also? CHRIS EVANS AS AN ICE CREAM TRUCK-DRIVING HITMAN NAMED MISTER SOFTEE.
Worth the price of admission alone, no?
Based on the book The Iceman: The True Story of a Cold-Blooded Killer, The Iceman will debut at the Venice and Toronto film fests.
[Apple]
Also in Monday morning’s round-up of news briefs, Killer Joe shrugs off its NC-17 and performs solid over the weekend; Remembering Norman Alden and The Gatekeepers is heading your way.
Warner Bros. Considers The Shining Prequel
“The film, which is said to be at a very early stage ‘and not even formally in development’ according to an anonymous source at the studio, would be the latest unlikely followup to a classic slice of cinema, The Guardian reports.
Foreign Box Office: The Dark Knight Rises Commands Foreign Box Office
The Dark Knight Rises bowed in 40 markets including France ($11.3 million at 892 sites including previews), Germany ($9.9 at 718 spots including previews) and in Mexico ($9.8 million at 1,141 situations). Christopher Nolan’s final Batman feature also opened in Russia ($8.7 million at 1,310 screens including previews), Brazil ($6.6 million at 931 sites) and in Japan ($6 million including previews), THR reports.
Killer Joe & Others Solid in Open: Specialty Box Office
Killer Joe manned up to its NC-17 and made a solid showing in three theaters with the top per-theater average among newcomers, $12,621 average. A number of distributors noted the Olympics opening served as a spoiler, but most newbies managed fairly solid results. Nipping at Killer Joe‘s heels, Ruby Sparks bowed at 13 locations, averaging $11,683. Deadline reports.
R.I.P. Norman Alden
He was the voice of superhero Aquaman in 1970s cartoon Super Friends and featured in films such as Back to the Future and Ed Wood. In 1985’s Back to the Future he played the owner of Lou’s Cafe alongside Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd, BBC reports.
The Gatekeepers Heads to N. America
Directed by Dror Moreh, the film is a windows into Israel’s secret service…
Also in Friday morning’s round-up of news briefs, the San Sebastian Film Festival unveils its roster of Spanish-language films for its September event. Sex and Sunsets production rounds out its cast; and a look at the coming weekend’s new specialty releases including Killer Joe, Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, Ruby Sparks and more.
Museum of Modern Art to Fete Quentin Tarantino
New York’s MoMA will honor the writer/director at its 5th annual Film Benefit December 3rd. Tarantino’s latest film, Django Unchained will be released by The Weinstein Company December 25th. “As a celebrated auteur director, Tarantino has leveraged his deep knowledge of cinema history to engage, entertain, and inform a new generation of movie fans,” said Rajendra Roy, Chief Curator of Film at MoMA. “Honoring him is a small way to pay homage to the important service he has done to propel and promote the art form.”
Sara Canning and Catherine O’Hara Join Sex and Sunsets
Canning (Vampire Diaries) and O’Hara (Frankenweenie) will join Ryan Kwanten in in the Serendipity Point Films production. Sex and Sunsets revolves around Leo Palamino (Kwanten), a failed writer-cum-dishwasher made famous for his many flaws and shortcomings in a blog called “Why You Suck,” written by his ex wife. He meets Colette, the girl of his dreams on the day she is marrying the perfect man. And so the ultimate underdog love story begins.
Around the ‘net…
Harvey Weinstein Wants Summit on Violent Movies
The TWC chief told the Huffington Post that Hollywood “can’t shirk our responsibilities” for depicting violence. “I think, as filmmakers, we should sit down – the Marty Scorseses, the Quentin Tarantinos, and hopefully all of us who deal in violence in movies – and discuss our role in that,” he said, Deadline reports.
San Sebastian Film…
Full Story »Slick and mean and full of piss and chicken grease, Killer Joe has worse manners than its deadly, courtly antihero. But in its own way and to its own detriment, William Friedkin’s splattery, southern gothic return to the screen seeks to amuse as well as shake and stir. What begins as a set of open provocations and genre tweaks propping up the story of a trashily blended Texas family’s encounter with an alpha hitman takes a turn through Coen and Lynch Lanes before winding up at the corner of Friedkin and Peckinpah. There a trailer ignites with violence and the tone of alternately abject and mordant depravity begins flailing like a rogue firehose.
That the Smiths are low, stupid people is easily understood, but Friedkin hardly tires of reminding us. Killer Joe opens on the middle of a stormy Texas night, and the wailing and window-banging of a fuck-up named Chris (Emile Hirsch), who is locked out of the family’s trailer. When his stepmother Sharla (Gina Gershon) finally responds, Chris (and the audience) comes face to fat, mossy minge with her naked crotch. Chris’s complaints find no truck with his exceptionally dense, defeated dad Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), who echoes Sharla’s involuted logic about not being expecting to find her stepson on the other side of the door. It feels unpromising that what could be a funny gag gets lost in the scene-flattening commotion of idiocy, which too often gets cranked so high little else gets through.
The Smiths have all kinds of boundary issues, not least when it comes to Dottie (Juno Temple), the gauzy baby doll daughter with a couple of little pink screws loose. Dottie sleepwalks, and either has crazy good hearing or crazy-girl intuition, because she cottons to Chris’s…
Full Story »William Friedkin barrels into theaters this Friday with Killer Joe, boldly adapted from Tracy Letts’ ultra-violent Southern-fried play about a Texas lawman/assassin who ingratiates himself into the family of the low rent punk (Emile Hirsch) who’s hired him to murder his mother. Los Angeleno Movieliners, grab a bucket of fried chicken and your twisted wits and dive into our latest 10-word review contest, tackling any of Friedkin’s cinematic output for a chance to win tickets to see Killer Joe this Thursday!
Movieline has five (5) pairs of tickets to attend a special screening of Killer Joe this Thursday, July 26 at 7:30pm at the Arclight in Hollywood — attendees must be 18 and over, due to its unapologetic NC-17 rating. To win, enter your best 10-word review of any William Friedkin movie and Movieline’s editors will select the five best, boldest, most original entries.
Where to start? Maybe with landmark crime pic The French Connection, which won Friedkin the Oscar for Best Director. Or The Exorcist, his nightmare-inducing, Oscar-winning horror classic? Or Sorcerer, or Cruising, or To Live and Die in L.A., Blue Chips, Jade, Bug… so much Friedkin! Have at it, and remember: Entries must be exactly ten words, only one post per person, and make sure to include your email address when you enter.
Contest will end Tuesday, July 24, at 3pm PT/6pm ET. Winners will notified via email.
Killer Joe hits theaters in limited release on Friday.
Cower in fear (and admiration) for the villainous Angelina Jolie! Releasing a first look at their upcoming Maleficent, Disney announced today that production is underway on the Jolie-toplined adaptation centered on Sleeping Beauty’s evil witch, which “reveals the events that hardened her heart and drove her to curse the baby, Aurora.” Just look at those cheekbones. Scary!
The retconned fairytale (in theaters in 2014) brings the witch Maleficent front and center, with innocent young Elle Fanning playing Princess Aurora. Fanning and Jolie are joined by a solid line-up: Sharlto Copley, Sam Riley, Juno Temple, Imelda Staunton, Miranda Richardson, and Lesley Manville round out the cast, while Disney Renaissance legend Don Hahn is among the executive producers.
Once upon a time, Tim Burton and Darren Aronofsky’s names were bandied about to helm the picture, but visual effects vet Robert Stromberg landed in the director’s chair, marking his directorial debut. Meanwhile, Maleficent’s script is written by Linda Woolverton (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King) and they’ve got Rick Baker onboard for make-up, all of which is promising enough for me…for now.
Maleficent is set for release (in 3-D) on March 14, 2014.
