Tommy Lee Jones is following up his role as Rep. Thaddeus Stevens in Lincoln with a performance as another curmudgeonly historical figure, this time as General Douglas MacArthur in the days following Japan’s World War II surrender. Jones brings the polarizing general to life in Emperor, set to open in theaters March 8. Here EW debuts the poster for the historical drama.
The darkly elegant poster features Jones in the background and co-star Matthew Fox in the foreground, with title text that incorporates the rising sun of the Japanese flag. Check it out below: READ FULL STORY »
After losing a key Oscar nomination, Argo continues its run of winning every other top prize.
The film claimed the Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble on Sunday, giving it yet another top prize as it heads into the Feb. 24 Oscars. The night before, it claimed the Producers Guild Award for Best Production. READ FULL STORY »
Who would you rather sit next to on a plane: General MacArthur or Tommy Lee Jones?
In the first official trailer for Emperor, Matthew Fox doesn’t really get a choice in the matter. The unlikely pair are on their way to Japan in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and must determine whether or not Emperor Hirohito is a war criminal. They only have ten days to do so.
Click past the jump to watch the trailer, and remind yourself that Tommy Lee Jones can look as unhappy as he wants at awards shows, as long as he continues to nail lines like “let’s show them some good old-fashioned American swagger.”
Meryl Streep and Tommy Lee Jones are both Ivy Leaguers who broke into Hollywood in the 1970s and went on to become Academy Award winners, but somehow they never managed to truly work together. Yes, they both co-starred in Robert Altman’s A Prairie Home Companion in 2006, but they never shared a scene, making Hope Springs, that summer movie that your mom and her book club raved about, extremely special. The duo play an aging married couple who have allowed the sizzle to go out from their marriage, and Steve Carell is the marriage specialist tasked with getting them back in the groove. The Blu-ray and DVD are released today, and EW has an exclusive clip from the DVD Gag Reel. Two reasons why this gag reel is superior to 99 percent of gag reels: Tommy Lee Jones and corgis. READ FULL STORY »
At the Sundance Film Festival in January, Joseph Gordon-Levitt said that acting opposite Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln was “uncanny.” He said, “I had absolutely no problem fully believing that I was standing across from and speaking to Abraham Lincoln.”
After seeing the trailer for Steven Spielberg’s long-in-the-works historical drama about the last four months of the president’s life, I have an inkling how Gordon-Levitt must have felt. There are no audio recordings of Lincoln’s voice, but when Day-Lewis concludes at the end, “…shall we stop this bleeding,” who doesn’t doubt that his is the voice of the Great Emancipator himself. It just feels and sounds… right.
Seeing Abraham Lincoln living and breathing on the screen is thrilling, especially since Hollywood hasn’t really given the 16th president his due since Henry Fonda played him in 1939. (Sorry Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure.) Day-Lewis instills a sadness and grace that remind us of the incredible weight on his shoulders. As Spielberg said in the Google+ Hangout video that followed the online trailer premiere last night, “We treat him as a man, not a monument.”
It’s difficult to tell exactly where the movie picks up, but it’s understood that Lincoln has been re-elected, and that city on fire just might be one of the Southern cities in General Sherman’s path on his March to the Sea, which helped break the back of the Confederacy in December 1864. Don’t expect too many such action sequences, though; Spielberg said battlefield scenes take a back seat to Lincoln’s political struggles to end the war and pass the 13th amendment to guarantee the promise of the Emancipation Proclamation. When we first meet Lincoln, the Proclamation and the Gettysburg Address have already been written and delivered. His place in history is already assured. Yet the war rages on. READ FULL STORY »
General Douglas MacArthur, polarizing World War II general who accepted Japan’s surrender, knew how to make an impression. When he fulfilled his promise to American troops and allies that he would eventually return to liberate the Philippines in 1944, he made sure that news cameras captured his moment of triumph — he dramatically made his way through the waves and on to the beach several times, just to make sure.
In Emperor, a new film that premieres tomorrow at the Toronto Film Festival, Tommy Lee Jones plays the conquering general as Americans troops arrive in Japan for post-war occupation and have to decide whether to treat the defeated nation’s figurehead as a war criminal. Jones doesn’t necessarily have the patrician bearing of MacArthur — or actors like Gregory Peck and Henry Fonda, who played the general in previous films — but he certainly mastered his supreme confidence. “I bear no real resemblance to MacArthur but when you put on the military uniform with lots of fruit salad on the front and smoke a corncob pipe — that’s the image that he cultivated and it became iconic,” said Jones.
In this exclusive clip, MacArthur prepares his men for battle — the intellectual and propaganda battle to win the peace after dropping two atomic bombs. READ FULL STORY »
• Cee Lo Green will join his fellow judge from The VoiceAdam Levine in the music-based drama Can A Song Save Your Life?, playing — brace yourselves now — a famous hip-hop artist. Levine plays the loutish boyfriend of Keira Knightley‘s character, an aspiring musician. Mark Ruffalo, Hailee Steinfeld, and Catherine Keener costar; John Carney (Once) is directing. [Variety]
• Shailene Woodley will star in writer-director Gregg Araki‘s indie drama White Bird, about a young woman whose life is thrown into disarray after her mother disappears. [Variety]
• Tommy Lee Jones is finalizing talks to join Robert De Niro and Michelle Pfeiffer in Malavita, an action comedy about a mobbed up couple who relocate to France under the witness projection program. Jones would play their F.B.I. minder. Luc Besson (The Professional) will direct, from a script he wrote with Michael Caleo (The Sopranos). [Variety]
Before Will Smith walked the red carpet at New York’s Men in Black 3 premiere last night, a publicist delivered the same strict message to each reporter she saw: Do not bring up the slap heard ’round the world. “We wouldn’t want to ruin this premiere too,” she explained, sounding both friendly and as though she’d happily eject anyone who disobeyed.
Notwithstanding that stern warning, the premiere’s atmosphere was positively jolly. For the most part, attendees ditched black for more festive attire; Smith sported a boisterous checked jacket, while women favored bright colors over less flashy gowns. Celebrity kids like Willow and Jaden Smith darted through the crowd, smiling mischievously without stopping for video crews. The boys of One Direction arrived carrying gigantic water guns that could bring down an alien army, provided they hailed from the invading planet in Signs.
Any premiere is an occasion for celebration — but this one inspired particularly high spirits. That’s probably because MIB 3 had a notoriously long, torturous development process; Smith first floated the story kernel that would become this movie’s plot during the filming of MIB 2 in 2002. No wonder one behind-the-scenes figure greeted a friend on the carpet by slapping his back and exclaiming, “You made it through the war!”
Meryl Streep may not be sporting fancy wigs or plummy accents for Hope Springs, her new comedy about a sixtysomething married couple (Streep and a growly Tommy Lee Jones) facing down the sexual doldrums of entering retirement age. But thanks to a can-do couples counselor (Steve Carell), her character does contend with some salacious fruit. Check out the new trailer below: READ FULL STORY »
The challenges involved in bringing Men in Black 3 to the screen — the ever changing script, the production delays, the budget that reportedly soared past $215 million — are not exactly a secret. If the thing had been a cakewalk, odds are we wouldn’t be sitting here 10 full years after the last installment of the sci-fi-comedy series, gearing up for the new film’s May 25 release. But co-star Josh Brolin had his own personal slice of misery to contend with in the making of MiB3: honing his impression of Tommy Lee Jones. The film’s storyline has Will Smith’s Agent J traveling back in time to 1969 to prevent an alien baddie named Boris (played by Jemaine Clement) from assassinating Jones’ Agent K — and the critical job of playing that younger incarnation of K fell to Brolin. “That was the toughest thing I’ll ever do,” Brolin tells EW. “I’m literally reliving it with you right now, and I’m so happy to be able to laugh about it.” READ FULL STORY »
