Archive: March 2010 (1-10 of 78)

Mar 31 2010 03:19 PM ET

Leonardo DiCaprio eyes Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar Hoover biopic

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He’s already worked with Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, so it was really just a matter of time until the Oscar-nominated actor joined forces with the legendary Clint Eastwood. DiCaprio himself confirmed to EW that he’s met with Eastwood on the project, which would follow Hoover’s tenure — and influence at — the FBI.

No deal is yet in place, but DiCaprio is clearly engaged. “It sounds interesting to say the least,” says DiCaprio. “There’s no contract, no anything, but I’m a huge fan of Clint’s.” Dustin Lance Black (Milk) wrote the script and Brian Grazer and his Imagine Entertainment are producing.

Mar 31 2010 02:00 PM ET

Ben Stiller in 'Greenberg,' and the pleasures of men behaving badly

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greenbergImage Credit: Wilson WebbSometimes the sweetest thing a famous actor can do for his career is play a sourpuss. That’s my theory, anyway, presented in conjunction with the release of Noah Baumbach’s bracingly dyspeptic psychological tragicomedy Greenberg. In this case, Ben Stiller does the honors with the title role, playing a man in midlife who is incapable — despite his best efforts at sustaining a low-stress mellowness — of not leaving his personal stink mark of dissatisfaction on everyone in his wake. But I don’t want to make the movie sound like (too much of) a downer, because it’s not — not with Stiller embracing Roger Greenberg’s prickly nature so earnestly. True, Stiller has tailored a successful career for himself playing guys so full of themselves that they’re hilarious in great, self-absorbed-peacock stuff like Zoolander and Tropic Thunder (one of my big-time favorites). But Greenberg strips Stiller of the familiar, air-quote irony with which he usually builds his outrageous characters. And in his energetic seriousness, the actor shows new dramatic depth.

Same thing goes for Adam Sandler, a popular, characteristically lovable funny guy whose big performance breakthrough into unsweetened territory in Paul Thomas Anderson’s jolt-to-the-system “romantic comedy” Punch-Drunk Love led to the fascinating, risky, complex projects he has taken on since, including Anger Management and Funny People. Then there’s Tom Cruise, who winked smartly at his own fame with excellent SOB roles in Magnolia and Tropic Thunder. And George Clooney who, in Up In the Air, found just the right way to mess with his own suave movie-star persona by playing a character with serious (rather than cartoony) deficiencies of soul.

Meanwhile, here’s a complementary theory to go along with my theme:  While “nice” male actors improve their standing by playing men who are the bitter opposite of nice, “nice” female actors enhance their cred by playing women who aren’t as pretty as the actresses playing them. Or who are at least dumpier. At one far extreme, there’s Charlize Theron in Monster; closer to home there’s, yes, Jennifer Aniston in The Good Girl.

Hit me with your own best example  to bolster — or disprove — my brilliant thesis.

Mar 30 2010 12:58 PM ET

John Cusack: Is is time for a gear change? Or is he trapped, forever, in the 1980s?

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better-off-deadImage Credit: Everett CollectionJohn Cusack goes back to the ’80s in Hot Tub Time Machine, but in a strange way, the role is almost too perfect for him. He has never really left the 1980s. At 43, he’s still that same guy — the boyishly polite joker with the pie-eyed Jughead face and thatchy hair, the gentle kinetic irony he spreads over… everything. He’s always smirky but sweet, sincere but put-on, in that infectious but slightly predictable way. A lot of young viewers complain that Kristen Stewart is “the same” in every role. I would argue otherwise, but be that as it may, Stewart is all of 19 (about to turn 20). She has a right, thus far in her career, to be more or less the same.

To me, John Cusack has been acting the same for more years than Kristen Stewart has been alive. He’s still that winsomely dour smart aleck from The Sure Thing and Better Off Dead, his first two big movies, both released in 1985. Only now, he has grown up, and his primary character trait is being a grownup while still clinging to that earlier, mockingly disgruntled boyish insolence. I deeply want to say that I like John Cusack — seriously, how could anyone not like him? He’s the soul of likability! — and, like everyone else, I think he ruled for all time in Say Anything (1989). That movie, in its small-verging-on-indie way, did for Cusack what The Graduate did for Dustin Hoffman: It exquisitely encapsulated a generational vibe in the spirit of one soulfully downbeat, quirkily confused romantic seeker. But am I the only one who wants to see Cusack change, stretch, lose (or gain) a personality trait or two? Am I the only one who has grown, over the years, just a wee bit tired of John Cusack? READ FULL STORY »

Mar 29 2010 07:47 PM ET

Andy Samberg, Zachary Quinto in talks to join Anna Faris in 'What's Your Number'

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Anna Faris’ R-rated comedy What’s Your Number? is assembling quite a supporting cast to play her slew of ex-boyfriends. Saturday Night Live’s Andy Samberg is attached and an offer is out to Star Trek’s Zachary Quinto to play two of the men she revisits in her quest to find love. The New Regency film is based on Karyn Bosnak’s book 20 Times a Lady and tracks Faris’ character Delilah, who upon sleeping with her 20th guy realizes that it’s too many and she must have missed her Mr. Right along the way. Chris Evans is already attached to play her womanizing next door neighbor.

New Regency is producing and filming is scheduled to begin in May, plenty of time for Evan to shoot before going off to be Captain America. Mark Mylod (Entourage) will helm.

Mar 29 2010 01:23 PM ET

'Godzilla' to be remade, courtesy of Legendary Pictures

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The giant Japanese monster is getting the Hollywood treatment — again. This time Legendary Pictures will do an American Godzilla movie, based on Toho Company’s legendary monster. The studio, which is behind the upcoming Clash of the Titans, has made it clear it won’t be a sequel to the 1998 film that Sony and Roland Emmerich made. (That movie starring Matthew Broderick grossed close to $400 million worldwide.) Rather, it will be a re-imagining of the original Godzilla movies. Legendary has plans to announce a director for the film soon. The movie — which Legendary hopes to release in 2012 — will be a co-production and co-financing deal with Warner Bros, and Toho will distribute the film in Japan.

Mar 29 2010 11:36 AM ET

Jennifer Aniston in 'The Bounty Hunter': Could she ever pull off a Sandra Bullock at the Oscars?

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Jennifer-Aniston_240.jpg Image Credit: Janet Mayer/PR PhotosThe box-office headline today is all about 3-D competition at the multiplex this past weekend, as How To Train Your Dragon stomped in on ground previously held by Alice in Wonderland. But my eye is on the news, delivered with much less fanfare, that ticket sales for the romantic comedy The Bounty Hunter, starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler, dropped less precipitously than other movies of its ilk tend to do in second-week release. And since that ilk is rom-com crapola, and since I have yet to feel even one degree of romantic or comedic heat radiating off of the emotionally insulated Mr. Butler in any of his rom or com endeavors, I credit Ms. Aniston, the femme half of the duo, for bringing home the bacon.

Truth is, I’m fascinated with Aniston these days. (Tabloids serve up so much BS about her that I’ve got to restrain myself from calling her “Jen,” as if she’s my friend and we could feel even closer if I bought her favorite brand of handbag.) I’m impressed with Aniston’s ambition, her industriousness; I’m interested in her willingness to play the game, first by the rules of fame that were handed to her by the TV success of Friends and later by the rules of celebrity that were thrust on her by her marriage READ FULL STORY »

Mar 28 2010 03:10 PM ET

'How to Train Your Dragon' wins the weekend; 'Alice' holds despite losing 3-D screens: Box Office Report

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how-to-train-your-dragon-3Image Credit: DreamWorks AnimationHow to Train Your Dragon won the weekend box office race with ease, grossing $43.3 million for the three-day frame. (A solid 11.5 percent of that cash came from 187 IMAX theaters.) The DreamWorks Animation film, which has won rave reviews from critics and audiences alike, may well have bowed with a far bigger number had it not been sandwiched between two other high-profile 3-D releases. The Viking-era-set action-adventure had to share 3-D screens with Alice in Wonderland, which in its fourth weekend in theaters managed to claim $17.3 million of box office gross, a respectable 49% drop that leaves the Tim Burton-directed film on the precipice of $300 million total. Dragon should enjoy solid grosses during the upcoming week with kids across the country out of school for spring break, but it’s likely to get squeezed next weekend when the highly anticipated Clash of the Titans rolls into 3-D theaters with a vengeance.

Hot Tub Time Machine bowed to an estimated $13.6 million for its opening weekend, good enough to claim third place. The R-rated ’80s nostalgia fest starring John Cusack drew in a crowd mostly over age 25, playing strong on the two coasts and in college towns, while underperforming in the South. The movie, from director Steve Pink, generated a B from Cinemascore, a response that doesn’t necessarily portend a strong second weekend. Surprisingly, The Bounty Hunter, which debuted last weekend in third place, held in well its sophomore session, dropping only 40% for an additional $12.4 million. The Jennifer Aniston-Gerard Butler-starrer has now grossed $38.8 million total. Diary of a Wimpy Kid suffered from Dragon competition. The well-reviewed film fell 55% in its second weekend to $10 million and a fifth-place finish. The movie’s two-week take now stands at $35.7 million.

She’s Out of My League landed in the sixth spot in its third weekend with another $3.5 million and a total gross of $25.6 million. Green Zone took in $3.3 million; total gross for this expensive Matt Damon-starrer stands at only $30.4 million after three weekends. The Leonardo DiCaprio-Martin Scorsese thriller Shutter Island earned another $3.2 million for a six-week total of $120 million. Repo Men landed in 9th spot with $3 million. The Jude Law-Forest Whitaker-starrer has grossed only $11.3 million after two weekends. Our Family Wedding rounded out the top ten with an additional $2.2 million. The film has earned $16.7 million in three weeks.

Limited release films are not scoring well with audiences lately, despite boasting a solid pedigree of talent. For example, Atom Egoyan’s R-rated drama Chloe starring Julianne Moore, Liam Neeson, and Amanda Seyfried earned just over $1 million. Opening in 350 theaters, the film scored a weak per-screen average of $2,863. The second weekend of Greenberg and The Runaways didn’t earn much better results. Even with the star power of Ben Stiller, the Noah Baumbach film grossed only $1 million, though with a per-screen average of $5,850. Meanwhile, the Kristen Stewart-Dakota Fanning-starrer The Runaways grossed $445,810 its second weekend in theaters. On 237 screens, the film’s per-screen was a weak $1,881 and its total is only $1.57 million.

Despite solid turns from the new releases, the overall weekend was down compared with last year at this time, when Monsters vs. Aliens bowed to $59.3 million. The difference: MVA had the 3-D screens all to itself. Next weekend sure will be interesting when three studios are competing to hold on to those coveted extra-dimensional theaters. Stay tuned.

Mar 28 2010 01:58 PM ET

'The T.A.M.I. Show': Out on DVD for the first time, it's a '60s-rock revelation

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tami-stonesImage Credit: Dick Clark ProductionsIf you’ve never seen The T.A.M.I. Show, the 1964 youth-concert explosion that has just been released on DVD for the first time, then by all means get hold of a copy of it. It’s an electric surge of ’60s rock-and-soul energy that will leave you bopping, laughing, and generally awed at the crackly pop fervor of the moment it captures. I confess that I didn’t realize, until now, how unique that moment was.

The first time I saw The T.A.M.I. Show, back in 1979 (it was then a fixture on the revival-house and college film-society circuit), I was, at the time, steeped in the percolating romantic-erotic rapture of disco (Chic, Donna Summer, Sylvester) and the compact-rock catharsis of punk and New Wave (Talking Heads, Blondie, the Clash, Devo), not to mention the symphonic synth-pop swoon of Supertramp. Seen, and listened to, against that backdrop, The T.A.M.I. Show, just 15 years old, struck me as old-fashioned and rather quaint. Shot in black-and-white at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, it looked and played like a glorified episode of American Bandstand (“T.A.M.I.” stands for the wonderfully ’50s-fuddy-duddy “Teen Age Music International”), with a variety-show balcony for its gyrating beach-blanket backup dancers and a lot of performers who weren’t, to be honest, all that relevant to me, like Chuck Berry and Lesley Gore and the Supremes. They may have been terrific on their own terms, but I felt, in my heart, that I didn’t need to hear “Sidewalk Surfin’”or “Baby Love” again. The movie seemed a time-capsule document of a long-ago, far-away era.

How funny pop is. The T.A.M.I. Show looks looser and more ecstatically alive to me now than it did then. (Maybe that’s what eight seasons of American Idol will do to you.) It was filmed just eight months after the Beatles made their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show, but you can see and hear how the culture shock that the Beatles represented had already rippled out into the world. Everyone in the movie, on stage and in the audience, is very polite, because “the 1960s” hadn’t happened yet. And yet the show, which is brilliantly paced, with a momentum that builds and builds, keeps pointing to the eruption that’s about to be unleashed. READ FULL STORY »

Mar 28 2010 12:34 AM ET

'Kids' Choice Awards': Katy Perry got her slime on!

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katy-perryImage Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Any kind of Scream redux should send a sound team to Nickelodeon’s annual Kids Choice Awards. At Saturday night’s awards, held at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion in Westwood, the mere mention of Justin Bieber’s name was enough to blow out the roof — if not humble those lesser, shriek-worthy stars like Rihanna, who was forced to serve as the kid’s warm-up act (she performed a medley but OMG he sang Baby! from his just-released My World 2.0!)

But the teen idol wasn’t the night’s only highlight for the ‘tween set; host Kevin James (Paul Blart: Mall Cop) opened the 90-minute live show with a sportive dance number, with music provided by an angelic Adam Sandler (literally, he dangled from the ceiling, dressed as an angel). ”Get slimed tonight!” Sandler crooned, in a reimagination of KC & the Sunshine Band’s Get Down Tonight.

Much was made of the fact that Sandra Bullock would skip the show because of certain problems at home — but only the winners seem to attend the big show anyway, and it was Miley Cyrus (!) who took home the requisite orange blimp for Favorite Movie Actress. The category ended up providing the night’s most comical moments. First, presenter Katy Perry tripped a box that was supposed to contain the winner’s identity — and ended up getting gobsmacked with a load of green slime (she had to know it was coming but she still seemed genuinely surprised at its impact). Then, fellow presenter Jonah Hill (Superbad) quipped that the award was going to Precious — but then quickly said it belonged to the Hannah Montana star, instead.  No one under 30 understood the reference to the Lee Daniels film that earned co-star Mo’Nique her first Oscar this month, but there were still plenty of chuckles in the pavilion.

Zachary Levi (Chuck) had fun with the fact that Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel beat out New Moon in the Favorite Movie category (“And to Twilight, sorry!” said Levi).  Olympic Gold Medalist Apolo Ohno participated in the annual “death-defying” slime stunt (he was catapulted into a small pool of the icky liquid). And First Lady Michelle Obama taped an acceptance speech for winning Nick’s first-ever Big Help Award for helping kids eat healthy and stay active. Good thing she wasn’t there to accept in person; the massive after-party featured burgers and fries from Burger King and a yummy brownie mousse for dessert. At least there were apple fries!

Here are the night’s big winners (more than 115 million kids cast their votes for this year’s show — a Nick first):

Favorite Movie: Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel

Favorite Movie Actor: Taylor Lautner (New Moon)

Favorite Movie Actress : Miley Cyrus (Hannah Montana: The Movie)

Favorite TV Show: iCarly

Favorite TV Actress: Selena Gomez (The Wizards of Waverly Place)

Favorite TV Actor: Dylan Sprouse (The Suite Life on Deck)

UPDATE: And here were some of the other winners who didn’t make the cut for the big show:

Favorite Animated Movie: UP

Favorite Voice From an Animated Movie: Jim Carrey (A Christmas Carol)

Favorite Song: “You Belong To Me” (Taylor Swift)

Favorite Music Group: Black Eyed Peas

Favorite Male Singer: Jay-Z

Favorite Female Singer: Taylor Swift

Favorite Cartoon: SpongeBob SquarePants

Favorite Reality TV Show: American Idol

Favorite Video Game: Mario Kart

Favorite Book: Diary of a Wimpy Kid

Mar 27 2010 01:48 PM ET

In the shadow of the Catholic sex-abuse scandal, here's the movie you have to see

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deliver-evilImage Credit: Everett CollectionIn the past, I’ve occasionally drawn attention to a movie that sheds light on a current news event. But the continuing revelations, this time in Europe, about child sex abuse within the Catholic Church are so grave and devastating, such a fearful human crime and human tragedy, that I want to say, right up front, I would not be asking you to read a blog post about this subject unless I thought that the movie I was going to recommend in connection with it was, by any standard, essential viewing. I certainly do concur with Ken Tucker’s assessment of the biting candor of last night’s Christopher Hitchens segment on Real Time with Bill Maher. If you want to gain an even deeper apprehension of this scandal, however, Deliver Us From Evil, released in 2006, is a great, fearless, shattering piece of documentary truth-telling. I promise you that if you see it, you will never read another news story about this topic without having a more profound and haunted understanding of it.

The movie, directed by Amy Berg, is a multi-layered exploration that looks with searing intimacy into the broken lives of former abuse victims, whom it portrays with supreme empathy, but also with a non-sugarcoated understanding of the emotional destruction they went through. Just as revealingly, the film opens up the shadow world of ecclesiastical politics, the whole darkly hidden shell-game system by which the priests who were perpetrators of these crimes were shuffled from one parish to the next, in a deliberate attempt to conceal their actions from the world. It was, quite literally, a protection racket. A key portion of the film is devoted to Father Oliver “Ollie” O’Grady (pictured above), a former Irish priest and convicted pedophile who discusses, at length, how he was able to get away with what he did. READ FULL STORY »

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