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EXCLUSIVE: Seth Rogen To Direct ‘Jay And Seth Vs. The Apocalypse’ With Evan Goldberg

Terri Schwartz — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 03:34:52 +0000

The last we heard on the ” Jay and Seth Vs. The Apocalypse ” front was back in April from Jay Baruchel , when he said that he and Seth Rogen were too busy at the moment to focus on bringing “Jay and Seth” to the big screen. Fortunately, a lot can happen in three months, and when MTV caught up with Rogen at ” The Green Hornet ” Comic-Con party, he was a bit more forthcoming about the project. “Me and Evan [Goldberg] are writing it right now, actually, and it’s come along way and it will probably be one of the next movies that we make, I would imagine,” Rogen said. As we’ve learned from ” Arrested Development ,” there’s a big difference between writing a movie and having written a movie, but Rogen elaborated that he and Goldberg are actually almost done with the writing process. “It takes years to write a goods movie, that’s what we’ve learned. We’re finally going to script form. Once you’re there, you’re kind of on the home stretch. It means you have the key ideas to build the movie,” he said. They’ve been watching a lot of ” The Mist ” and ” Tremors ” to try to help find the balance between horror and comedy for “Jay and Seth.” He said the film will have a group dynamic, which leads us to believe that a couple more of the usual Rogen/Baruchel friend circle will make their way into the film, despite the trailer (and title) only featuring the two of them. But the most exciting news that came out of the interview was not…

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EXCLUSIVE: Seth Rogen To Direct ‘Jay And Seth Vs. The Apocalypse’ With Evan Goldberg

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Top Ten: Great Jennifer Jason Leigh Movie Moments

Craig Bloomfield — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 19:18:00 +0000

Craig here. I’ve been given free reign on this week’s Tuesday Top Ten . So, to keep it Actressexual I thought I’d offer up Ten Great Jennifer Jason Leigh moments . Here are some choice (short) cuts from the career of Ms. Leigh. They’re in no order (chronological or preferential) and I’ve referred to Jennifer as JJL because, well, it saves time. Where’s Margot at the Wedding ? Where’s The Anniversary Party ? Fast Times at Ridgemont High ? Synechdoche, New York , A Thousand Acres or The Machinist ? Well, Nathaniel spoke about these and more in his interview with JJL a few years back. We’re keen on avoiding any …

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Top Ten: Great Jennifer Jason Leigh Movie Moments

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Links Wide Shut

NATHANIEL R — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 02:44:00 +0000

New York Magazine Helen Mirren fishes out her teats to promote Love Ranch which I am seeing tomorrow. Yay. My favorite image from the article is the one I can’t share her due to my strict PG rating from the MPAA (although maybe The Film Experience is a full R now because sometimes we talk about the gay and you know how they hate that. Even the talking about it.) Rub-a-dub-dub, Helen’s in

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Links Wide Shut

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New York Times Magazine Posts Correction On M.I.A. Article!

Celebrity Pictures Blog — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 14:26:42 +0000

After days of M.I.A. waging war on New York Times Magazine’s Lynn Hirschberg over her piece on the Sri Lankan rapper, the publication

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New York Times Magazine Posts Correction On M.I.A. Article!

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Jesse James Citing Childhood Abuse For Cheating On Sandra!

Celebrity Gossip Blog — Wed, 26 May 2010 16:32:09 +0000

Jesse James went to treatment after the scandal broke that he cheated on Sandra Bullock . And he’s learned a lot – like not taking responsibility for your actions! During his interview on Nightline , the idiot gave a few cringe-worthy quotes. Here are some highlights: On his successes: His TV show, Monster Garage, was “a huge smoke screen so people won’t see I’m a scared abused kid, a 7 year old.” On rehab: “I cried more in rehab in last 30 days than I have in my whole life. I don’t think I have a sex addiction where I’m running around trying to have sex with everyone and can’t stop. I think I do things to sabotage my life including extramarital affairs, texting … I do a lot of things in my life I shouldn’t be doing that aren’t conducive to being a perfect husband.” On cheating: “When I was doing it, you know, one, I knew it was horrible, it made me feel horrible. And two, I knew I would get caught eventually, and I think I wanted to get caught.” Sandra “had her suspicions in the past, but, you know, I lied, and lied my way out of it. I lied to everyone about everything, even to myself.” Jesse also became emotional after recalling an incident when his father chased him around the house in the dark and he broke his arm. His father denied the allegations in an email.

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Jesse James Citing Childhood Abuse For Cheating On Sandra!

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Emile Hirsch Says Catherine Hardwicke’s ‘Hamlet’ Vision Is ‘Scary-Cool,’ With Elements Of ‘The Shining’

Christopher Campbell — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:00:13 +0000

While talking to Emile Hirsch this week about his new movie “Taking Woodstock,” Collider.com got some new details on the actor’s upcoming reunion with “Twilight” director Catherine Hardwicke. The two previously worked together on “Lords of Dogtown,” and now they’re closely collaborating on a modernized version of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.”

Hirsch, who helped conceive of the idea of this college-set take on the tragic play, mentioned a film he’s looking to for inspiration. “It’s almost like mixing ‘Hamlet’ with ‘The Shining’ a little bit,” he told Collider.com, “and making this kind of scary-cool vision of the play.”

Of course, the movie will still be geared toward a younger audience, Hirsch says. So don’t expect any nude female ghosts that age suddenly before Hamlet’s eyes. But maybe the ghost of Hamlet’s father can ride around on a tricycle? Or, perhaps the titular prince can tear through a door with an axe as he shouts, “This is I, Hamlet the Dane!”

Okay, seriously… Hirsch’s idea that this “Hamlet” will be a Kubrick-influenced supernatural horror movie is interesting, and something of a relief. It’s certainly reasonable to think that Hardwicke’s involvement means it’s going to be more of a supernatural-centered story with a specific target audience in mind. You know, since “Twilight” is kind of a big deal these days.

If Hirsch’s vision for “Hamlet” ends up being as good in its execution as it sounds on paper, I’ll be more hopeful that Hardwicke’s next teen-oriented supernatural pic, “The Girl With the Red Riding Hood,” will be worth seeing as well.

Are you more interested in this version of “Hamlet” now that it might be scary? How could elements of Kubrick’s “The Shining” be made to fit into a work like “Hamlet”?

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Free from SnagFilms: Second Skin

Joe Leydon — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:04:00 +0000

As I wrote in Variety last year: “Is Everquest a harmless distraction or an addictive scourge? Does World of Warcraft forge communities or fray relationships? The answers are as diverse as the interviewees in Second Skin, a sometimes celebratory, sometimes cautionary look at the phenomenon of massively multiplayer online computer games (MMOs). Filmmaker Juan Carlos Pineiro Escoriaza includes cogent observations by scientists, social commentators and game designers, and repeatedly flashes germane factoids (example: The latest edition of Warcraft software posted $96 million in first-day sales). But the human dramas of individual gamers are what really make this technically polished documentary so fascinating…”

The movie “emphasizes the allure for male and female players of assuming the identity of a dashing digital avatar in a virtual online universe of swinging swords and derring-do. Interactive gamers can compete against — and establish friendships or begin romances with — unseen strangers hundreds or thousands of miles away. Trouble is, gaming can be extremely habit-forming, leading, in extreme cases, to alienation and depression. Gamer Dan Bustard struggles to recover after losing almost everything while lost in virtual worlds; unfortunately, his is not the worst-case scenario in Second Skin.”

But don’t take my word for it. Through Aug. 13, you can go see it yourself here.

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‘Ninja Assassin’ Director James McTeigue Looks To Edgar Allen Poe For ‘The Raven’

Christopher Campbell — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 18:00:39 +0000

Edgar Allan Poe is no stranger to the movies. His literature has been adapted to film as early as 1908 and he was first portrayed onscreen in a D.W. Griffith short a year later. So it’s not always that exciting to hear about another Poe project in the works. However, I am very intrigued by this new movie coming from “V for Vendetta” director James McTeigue, which will fictionalize the writer’s mysterious final days.

/Film got the scoop on this project while interviewing McTeigue at San Diego Comic-Con. His latest, the upcoming “Ninja Assassin,” was screened at SDCC and it opens this November. The Poe project is titled “The Raven,” though it’s not exactly based on the writer’s avian-centric poem. McTeigue claims it’s like a cross between Poe’s “The Raven” and the David Fincher film “Se7en.” Scripted by Hannah Shakespeare (Kevin Bacon’s “Loverboy”) and Ben Livingston, “The Raven” follows Poe as he hunts for a serial killer inspired by his stories.

If you’re a fan of the Starz series “Party Down,” you may wish that a young Abraham Lincoln were involved, and that Poe was actually chasing a vampire. But this less ridiculous premise sounds pretty cool, even if it doesn’t feature Hollywood’s favorite trope du jour (hint: it rhymes with fampires).

The mystery of Poe’s death — he was found delirious on the streets of Baltimore with someone else’s clothes and repeating the name “Reynolds,” but died shortly after without explaining what had happened — has always been ripe for speculative fictions. Multiple works have been written about the potential circumstances that led to his delirium and subsequent death. Only a few years back there was another film, titled “The Death of Poe,” which proposed that the writer was lethally beaten during a robbery.

McTeigue’s movie is hardly the sole Poe project currently in the works. Sylvester Stallone has been developing a biography of the writer which he plans to direct while Clive Barker has been working on a Poe film for a young adult audience. Then there’s the upcoming adaptations “Tell-Tale,” starring Josh Lucas, a modern re-imagining of “The Tell-Tale Heart,” and “The Ushers,” which will be a 3-D version of “The Fall of the House of Usher.”

Are you ready for yet another Edgar Allan Poe movie? Who should play the writer this time around? Do you have a favorite Poe adaptation?

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Neill Blomkamp Spent ‘Five Months’ Working On ‘Halo’

Adam Rosenberg — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 17:30:40 +0000

For many gamers — myself included — “District 9” director Neill Blomkamp was the next great hope for a competent video game-to-film adaptation. He paired up with Peter Jackson to deliver a big screen take on Microsoft’s pride and joy franchise, “Halo.” The plans ultimately fizzled out due to uncertain supporting studios and an even more uncertain financial environment. It turns out that the project’s death was for the best, as without it Blomkamp’s plate was cleared for next week’s “District 9.”

The South African filmmaker spoke with MTV’s Josh Horowitz at Comic-Con, and he was more than happy to discuss his experiences with “Halo.” Really though, “happy” isn’t the right word. Blomkamp is clearly bummed that he didn’t get to tackle Master Chief’s adventures. Check the interview highlights and the video after the jump.

“It’s completely and utterly dead,” he said, with a small, wistful grin. “‘Halo’ is a really tough one for me… it keeps coming up.” Not terribly surprising, considering how passionate and loyal the gamer fanbase — and the “Halo” fanbase in particular — tends to be.

“It’s tough because I spent five months working on it, like 24 hours a day. Not only because it was my first film and I had an opportunity to try and, you know, make the best film I could make, but I loved the creative environments of ‘Halo’ so much,” he said. “The whole universe is incredibly compelling.”

“When you spend five months working on something like that, and then you just get the rug pulled out from underneath you, it’s not easy to kinda go back to that,” he explained. “For me it would be difficult to revisit ‘Halo.’ I wish I could, but I’m not sure I would be able to.”

An unfortunate situation for Blomkamp, one that I hope will be less so next week when audiences go wild for his “District 9″ and its incredibly low $30 million budget. Check out the video below for the full Blomkamp interview.

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Tues Top Ten: Pregnancies

NATHANIEL R — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:18:00 +0000

In honor of Penélope Cruz’s recently announced pregnancy and the DVD release of Lindsay Lohan’s latest Labor Pains (don’t everybody rush out to snatch it up at once. I promise you they’ll have enough copies) in which she fakes a pregnancy to keep a job, I thought a top ten list celebrating the miracle of childbirth — or future childbirth rather — was called for.

But first a bit more about Ms. Lohan. Rich at fourfour collected the Labor Pain lines that were more applicable to Lindsay the celebrity than the character she happens to be playing.

…not that Lindsay plays characters these days. The Actress wrapped things up with Mean Girls, only The Celebrity lives on.
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Ten Best Pregnant Movie Characters

10 Juno in Juno (2007)
The general three act journey of zeitgeist movies goes like so… Act I: instant hype, audience love and acclaim births a new pop culture babe; Act II: media overkill curdles that hype, attempts to beat holdout audience members into submission spurring rebellions. Backlash turns pop culture darling into punching bag; Act III: Everything settles down until the darling/punching bag is just a movie again, neither the greatest nor the worst ever made. Are we in act three yet with Juno? I hope so because for all the swipes at its forced quirk and too widely adopted quotables, it’s a good movie and Juno the character as written, and especially as performed by Ellen Page, should be appreciated as a pretty swell(ing) movie character, hamburger phones be damned.

But how do you think her baby turned out?

09 Demi Moore in…
Vanity Fair Magazine: The Movie. Don’t even argue that that wasn’t her best role.

08 Holly in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986)
That’s a spoiler if you haven’t seen Woody Allen’s Oscar nominated classic. I love that Holly begins the movie as a bundle of cocaine snorting sister-dependent directionless neurosis and ends the movie aglow with the promise of new life and yet you never think to worry that she’ll be a terrible mother. You’re too in love with Holly to be anything but happy for her. Credit Dianne Wiest who is one of the most endearing actresses that the cinema has ever known.

07 Sarah Connor in The Terminator (1984)
If you give birth to the future savior of mankind you deserve a place on the list. I chose Sarah over Mary from any Jesus movie or Kee from Children of Men because I don’t think they would have survived a robot apocalypse (too demure and too shell shocked, respectively). More on The Terminator and Sarah Connor herself.

06 Dawn Lagarto aka ‘Bloody Mama‘ in Series 7: The Contenders (2001)
It’s strange to me that Daniel Minahan’s Series 7 never got its due as a prescient satire of the barbaric leanings of reality television and celebrity culture’s fame fixation. In the movie, random citizens are selected to star in a show wherein they have to kill the other contestants before they’re killed themselves. The final girl (or boy) is the winner. Did the black comedy arrive a year or two too early? Is it not quite as sharp as I remember it being? Either way, Brooke Smith’s reluctant but efficient pregnant murderess still lingers in the memory with her big belly, flop sweat and bloody hands.

Is Brooke Smith cursed? Whenever you think her career is going to take off either the film doesn’t (Series 7) or she’s overshadowed by brilliant co-stars even though she’s totally working it too (Vanya on 42nd Street and Silence of the Lambs) or she gets written out of the ~~picture~~ series (Grey’s Anatomy, Weeds). If anyone in Hollywood had actually seen Series 7 maybe they wouldn’t be so quick to write her off as a contender. Given the right opportunities, she’s killer.

05 Ashley in Junebug (2005)
Cuter than a meercat. [Related post: Amy Adams interview]

04 Ruth in Citizen Ruth (1996)
If you’ve never seen Alexander Payne’s satire of America’s eternal war between the pro-choice and pro-life forces, you should. The ever brilliant Laura Dern (in one of the best performances of 1996) plays the druggy dimwitted and frequently pregnant Ruth and both sides of the abortion divide seek to co opt her for their cause. It’s worth seeing for Dern’s amoral comedy alone but the political satire has real bite, too. Here I’ll help you. Rent it from Netflix or Blockbuster.

[Related post: Signatures: Laura Dern]

03 Marge Gunderson in Fargo (1996)
Frances McDormand’s Oscar win for her seven months pregnant police chief is one of the greatest atypical Oscar moments of all time. A memorably comedic portrayal of a truly original character wins? There is a god. That’s as hopeful as Marge’s innate goodness, which provides the wintry brutality of Fargo’s comedy with its sole warmth.

And for what? For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know. Don’cha know that?

And here ya are, and it’s a beautiful day. Well, I just don’t understand it.

Marge is a great cop. You know she’s going to be an awesome mom in just “two more months. two more months.”

02 Trudy Kockenlocker in The Miracle at Morgan’s Creek (1944)
This Preston Sturges comedy about a girl who gets knocked up on a one night stand with the troops should be mandatory viewing in film schools. It’s not that it’s the greatest comedy of all time or anything that hyperbolic. It’s that it does two things superbly that Hollywood has forgotten how to do well at all. First, briskly paced comedic storytelling and second, an endearing good time gal lead who doesn’t feel like she’s been assembled from pull down menus in a screenwriting program. Betty Hutton is a total dream as Trudy: funny, sexy, radiant and supremely silly. She’s just wondrously fruity. And her loins are unexpectedly fruitful, too.

01 Rosemary in Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Roman Polanski’s enduring chiller is among my personal holy trinity of horror: the ~~father~~ mother (Psycho), the son (Rosemary’s Baby), and the unholy ghost (Carrie). Most horror movies play with our loudly admitted phobias: fear of the dark, monsters, death. Rosemary’s Baby plays a more masterful game, exposing primal fears about things we’re not supposed to admit we’re scared of. Fears such as pregnancy, childbirth, unknowable offspring and the dread of identities subsumed by our children’s. Mia Farrow’s brilliant star turn channels these anxieties which are especially pronounced in new mothers, whether or not they’ve been knocked up by the devil.

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Here’s the part where you horrify me by telling me who I’ve forgotten…