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…
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This December is heavy with major movies — Zero Dark Thirty, This is 40, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, Django Unchained and Les Misérables — that are literally (use the bathroom first) and metaphorically big. As they dominate the year-end conversation, it seems like a good moment to to call out some films that may not earn many mentions at award shows and top ten lists, but nevertheless charmed, entertained or impressed me throughout the year.
This fascinating documentary about the relatively new world of independently made video games follows the maker of an established hit, a team preparing to debut their work and a guy who’s been toiling for years on something that’s still not finished. It’s a look at the ambitious far reaches of a medium that’s been dominated by the equivalent of blockbusters for most of its existence, and at what it means to strive for something personal and artistically inclined in a world just learning to appreciate those qualities.
Ira Sachs’ film about the ups and downs of a decade-long romance is based on his own relationship, and has the sting of the personal in the way it tracks how the needy Eric (Thure Lindhardt) and the drug-addicted Paul (Zachary Booth) support, hurt and enable each other. It’s a painfully honest look at how we can keep returning to the things we know are bad for us, and what it takes to finally pull away.
3. Sparkle
Yes, it comes with the baggage of featuring an unhappy, exhausted-looking Whitney Houston in her last role and serving as the acting debut of American Idol winner Jordin Sparks. But Sparkle is an interesting, complex consideration of African American womanhood and what…
Full Story »After several hours during which it was assumed to be a very competent fake, Warner Bros. has confirmed that the autographed photo originally posted this morning on Ain’t It Cool News is indeed our first glimpse of Tom Hardy as Max Rockatansky in Mad Max: Fury Road.
The photo, part of a signed set given to the crew by Hardy on the last day of filming — Fury Road wrapped on Monday — reveals little about the movie, aside from the slightly more modern look of Hardy’s take on the character, and the fact that Hardy is extremely handsome even when you factor for the post-apocalyptic wastes of Australia.
Gone is Max’s trademark police-issue black leather jacket with a single oversized spaulder on the right shoulder. In its place is what appears to be a rough-cut leather jacket with a more contemporary military look. Obviously, it should be assumed that years have passed since we last saw Max and that he’s long since run out of black polish, but it gives Max a subtle update that suggests the apocalypse happened more recently than the later years of the cold war.
It’s unwise to make predictions based on a single image, but to my eyes the most interesting thing about the picture is that you can kind of see a hint of the original plan for Mad Max 4. First conceived as an animated 3D film to be co-written and co-designed by cartoonist Brendan McCarthy, who’s known for his long run on Judge Dredd in the anthology comic 2000AD, Max’s uniform as seen here is definitely reminiscent of the kind of post-civilized militarism you see dripping from the pages of that book. As McCarthy is still credited as cowriter…
Full Story »Movieline would like to welcome Pete Hammond to the pages of this site with a new column that we’re calling Hammond on Film. If you love movies, then you’re probably familiar with Pete’s byline. He’s the Awards columnist for our sister site, Deadline Hollywood, as well as a veteran movie critic who has written more than 600 reviews for the best-selling Leonard Maltin’s Movie Guide and, most recently, was the film critic for Boxoffice Magazine and Boxoffice.com. He has also reviewed features for CNN. For his first column, Pete takes a close look at Judd Apatow’s This Is 40, which opens Dec. 21.
‘This is 40′: The Sort-of-Sequel to ‘Knocked Up’
Revisiting the married supporting characters Pete and Debbie of his 2007 comedy hit, Knocked Up, writer/director Judd Apatow has crafted his most personal and affecting film to date.
In some respects, This Is 40 is an Apatow home movie with Paul Rudd, returning as Pete, subbing for the director. Real-life wife Leslie Mann and daughters Iris and Maude Apatow taking on the same roles here, and it isn’t a stretch to think we’re watching the filmmaker’s life unfold onscreen.
Smart, funny and truthful in too many ways to count, Apatow, who’s actually 45, picks up the story of Pete and Debbie’s marriage five years after we first met them. Both are facing 40th birthdays — although Debbie is fudging the truth — and Apatow uses this conceit to build an episodic look at their marital and familial ups and downs over the course of a month.
This Is 40 is the most sharply observed and cutting edge of all four Apatow-directed efforts to date, and I suspect that’s because he’s really writing what he knows here.
Yes, there is still plenty of Apatow’s trademark raunch,…
Full Story »Fanboy movie news is out of control today. If this were the 1930s we’d need a massive montage of spinning newspaper headlines. First, talk of Darkseid in Justice League, then the (extremely uninspired) poster from Star Trek Into Darkness, and new art from Man of Steel. Not to be outdone, Marc Webb, readying The Amazing Spider-Man 2, has thwipped a tweet our way with the first glimpse of our new Harry Osborne – Dane DeHaan.
Dane DeHaan, whose ten letter name makes economic a mere three consonants and two vowels, was said to be in the running for Spidey’s new foe against other young men like Alden Ehrenreich (a good actor, but too many letters), Brady Corbet, Eddie Redmayne, Boyd Holbrook, Douglas Booth and Sam Claflin. DeHaan, if you recall, was the main character in the surprisingly effective found-footage superhero (or was it supervillain?) film Chronicle.
Harry Osborn, the son of OsCorp’s Norman Osborn, was played by James Franco in the original Sam Raimi trilogy. DeHaan certainly has that weight-of-the-world sulk down pat, which is a key part of Webb’s Spider-Man aesthetic. The gals who flock to see skinny high school aged white boys will have their needs met, despite DeHaan actually being nearly 27. (That’s okay, Andrew Garfield will be over 30 when The Amazing Spider-Man 2 comes out, which leads me to think that I should probably be rubbing some of that sticky, milky Spidey substance all over my pores.)
In the first Amazing Spider-Man 2 look Tweeted today by Webb, DeHaan has a bit of a scrappy look (don’tcha just want to tussle his hair?)…
Full Story »A widow (Vera Farmiga) lounges with her teenage son Norman (Freddie Highmore) in the grass near their new home. How bad could things possibly get? Since this is your first look at A&E’s Bates Motel, in which the fresh-faced Highmore plays a young Norman Bates, and Farmiga his dear mother, the answer is, well, a LOT.
Bates Motel is created by Lost’s Carlton Cuse and Friday Night Lights‘ Kerry Ehrin, and is also set to star Max Thieriot (The House At The End of the Street) as Dylan Bates, Norman’s brother and one of a few newly conceived characters joining the previously established world of Hitchcock’s Psycho. (Read Movieline’s chat with Thieriot here.)
The series doesn’t hit the airwaves until next year, but it’s no surprise A&E is seizing their chance at building buzz now, with Hollywood in a period of Hitchcock mania; the Anthony Hopkins-as-Hitch dramedy Hitchcock opens in limited release this week, while HBO’s more serious, skeezy portrait of the Master of Suspense The Girl debuts this fall.
What intrigues about this Bates Motel first look, meanwhile, is twofold: First, the hint of a moody-emo shadow in Highmore’s face — young Norman still seems innocent, but we know that’ll change soon enough. (Plus, he totally nails that young Anthony Perkins look.) More provocative still is the sheer distance in Farmiga’s eyes as she gazes away from her child, her new hotel, her life. That’s acting with a capital A, people. I’ll watch just to see what kind of terrible parenting skills it takes to turn little August Rush into a psychopath.
[via The Hollywood Reporter]
Barbara Walters’ arch rival Lindsay Lohan is continuing to pimp out Liz & Dick and last night she did so (sort of) on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. Proving that she’s way more tolerable when she doesn’t speak, LiLo performed in Jimmy’s “Let Us Play With Your Look” skit while looking like Janine from Ghostbusters after moving to the Village of the Damned. LiLo really has come a long way, because I can’t believe she’s got that much white stuff on her hands and she’s not trying to snort, smoke or lick it. Bitch is practically brand new.
Speaking of brand new, I need brand new ear drums after mine got hit and over and over again with the high-pitched shaky musical notes shooting out of Jimmy Fallon’s yodel hole. Jimmy is attacking my ears and he’s stealing Peter Pan Dude’s signature look while doing so. This entire skit is what scientists see when they look at two of LiLo’s corroded coke boogers under a microscope.
In other Blohan news, Larry Thompson, the executive producer of Liz & Dick, talked to reporters about what it was like to work with the freckled terror of Hollywood.
“We had serious challenges to deal with due to her probation and her history. Therefore we had to make a deal where there were pages and pages of ‘what if’ clauses. There never was a ‘what if
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