Straight-shooting Transformers costar Megan Fox has given an interview to GQ, touching on her disdain for the pro forma apologies of starlets, her affinity for both occasional ball-cupping and playing Metal Gear on Xbox with fiancé Brian Austin Green, and her teenage crush on a Russian stripper. It’s here, if you need it. Or you can just click here for a photo, save yourself the read, and hear about it later from a friend.
Category Archives: Amusements
Republican Is a Four-Letter Word to John McCain
So I long ago signed up to receive campaign emails from both Barack Obama and John McCain, and among the interesting tidbits from the latter’s most recent e-blast of financial solicitation, from today: six uses of some version of the word reform, five uses of the word Democrat, and zero uses of the word Republican. All of which further underscores the ridiculousness of McCain’s previous lampooning of Obama as a “celebrity,” given that McCain so clearly fancies himself — both in record and out of political necessity for this election cycle — a brand unto himself. Yes, “R” is the new scarlet letter, and a self-designation to be scrupulously avoided. That is George Bush’s true legacy.
Spirits in a Material World
At some point, a couple years from now, in a video store in northeast Missouri, some boomer-aged arthouse cinephile will confuse David Koepp’s Ghost Town with Terry Zwigoff’s 2001 film Ghost World, and rent the former. And they will not be happy.
“Drill, Baby, Drill!”
From Tony Stone, the filmmaker behind Severed Ways: The Norse Invasion of America, comes a great, and chilling, send-up of the Republicans’ bizarre chants of “Drill, baby, drill!” at the recent Republican National Convention. Just a bit overlong, still at only two minutes, it nonetheless packs a nice satiric wallop, courtesy of footage from Body Double, and other flicks. To view before the copyright hounds make their claims, click here.
Judd Apatow Demands, Gets DP Janusz Kaminski
So Judd Apatow‘s super-secret new film Funny People — with Adam Sandler, Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Jason Schwartzman, Eric Bana and Apatow’s wife Leslie Mann — is being shot by… Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski? Yes, it appears so, and at the express insistence of Apatow, I’m told. (Which makes sense, really, as his name assuredly wouldn’t have come up via other channels.) Solidly sourced word also places the film’s budget around $90 million, leading one to wonder if Universal learned their lesson with Evan Almighty, namely that mega-budgeted comedies are often a recipe for disaster. Oh, right, it’s a co-production with Sony. Spread the damage, then, I guess it makes Hollywood sense.
Chris Matthew Assays John McCain’s “Mrs. Doubtfire Strategy”
Anyone who watches his weekend NBC show knows that Hardball‘s Chris Matthews is a big movie fan, and today, just now, he rather amusingly dubbed John McCain’s acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention the “Mrs. Doubtfire strategy.” Offering up a quickie synopsis of that film, in which Robin Williams dresses up as a British nanny after, in Matthews’ words, failing as a father and husband, he said McCain is pitching the same strategy: “We failed the last eight years, but we’ve put a new costume on — accept us and give us custody of the country again because we look different.”
Robert Englund Doesn’t Remember Neville Brand Trying to Rape Anyone
I spoke to the loquacious Robert Englund recently, for a feature piece about both Jack Brooks: Monster Slayer and his career as a horror icon. Wrapping up, out of left field I couldn’t resist asking him about how insane Neville Brand may or may not have been, since on the audio commentary track for the DVD release of Tobe Hooper’s Eaten Alive — the movie that sparked Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill homage of Englund’s character and his signature sleazy line, “My name is Buck, and I wanna fuck” — costar Roberta Collins talks about Brand trying to sexually assault her.
“I’m not sure,” says Englund, seemingly genuinely stumped. “I don’t even remember him being extremely eccentric. He was Neville Brand, but I think he might have been having problems with his family in Malibu — that’s something in the back of my head, that he was going through a bad divorce or maybe some problems with his daughter. I don’t know, I vaguely remember that. And he may have freaked out after I left the project.”
College
By all accounts the randy new teen comedy College should have been a solid late summer performer — the movie that kids either just back at school or gearing up to head back to class went to check out over the weekend, in order to get primed for some autumnal partying. Instead, the movie was stillborn at the box office, debuting to just $2.15 million in its first weekend — failing to crack the top 10 in the same slot that the party-hearty Accepted grossed eight figures en route to a total domestic haul of $36 million just two years ago.
As if designed by checklist, College has all the most essential ingredients of a low-budget teen comedy: an R rating, an eye-grabbing poster, a cost-efficient cast comprised of mostly new faces, cartoonish antagonists in the form of frat-boy jerks, and plenty of nudity. About the only thing College misses the mark on is the inclusion of a henpecking or ironically hip parental presence. (Fred Willard wasn’t available, apparently.)
And yet… it doesn’t gel. And a general audience screening on opening day afforded a unique opportunity to witness firsthand viewer dissatisfaction with College. At an afternoon show with 20-25 people, someone actually threw a drink at the screen — something I didn’t think really happened anymore, what with their $6-plus cost. The group later left, and not too quietly. Teen braggadocio, sure, but still… if your core constituency will effectively surrender as much money filing a flamboyant protest as to the quality of your movie as he did actually patronizing it, that’s probably not a good sign.
Somewhat belying the title, College centers mostly on three high school kids, and the weekend roadie they take to Fieldmont University in order to acquaint themselves with the institution and its academic and social climate. Having just been dumped by his girlfriend, buttoned-up Kevin Brewer (Superhero Movie‘s Drake Bell, above center) is inclined to loosen up a bit and start taking some risks, especially when he meets Kendall (Haley Bennett), a sorority gal who shares his interest in photography. Gangly, bespectacled Morris Hooper (Kevin Covais, above left) is even more bookish and tightly wound, which makes him the perfect punching bag (verbally and quite literally) for Carter Scott (Andrew Caldwell, above right), the requisite motor-mouthed fat oaf of the bunch. When the student at their assigned dorm housing seems too weird, the trio head to a nearby frat house, where Carter’s (never-met) cousin was once a member. There, the guys are put through hell for their room and board, with the threat of revelation of their “pre-freshmen” status always being used as an instrument of bullying and torture.
Debut feature filmmaker Deb Hagan injects a lot of energy into the proceedings, but College‘s main failings are twofold. First, the story requires that Kevin and his pals constantly re-engage and keep on some level trusting the jackass fraternity members who take all their money and generally make their lives hell for a couple days. By the time the revenge element of the screenplay kicks in, during its last 10 minutes, you’ve ceased looking at these guys as anything but doormats, collectively and individually.
Second, and there’s not particularly a polite way to put this, College just doesn’t pass its personality exam. Seminal teen flick American Pie launched and/or solidified a couple careers, including that of Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott, Alyson Hannigan and Shannon Elizabeth. It even secured steady work for Chris Klein and Chris Owen, for Pete’s sake. This October’s Sex Drive, by point of further comparison, has a cast that elevates the material in delightful ways. Its three leads — Josh Zuckerman, Amanda Crew and Clark Duke — all make hay, delivering not only the laughs in the script, but also comedic moments of their own devising.
While College has the minor-chord titillation of seeing former American Idol contestant Covais drop a couple F-bombs and eventually roll around in some mud-caked tighty-whiteys, there just isn’t ever any pop here on the screen — a feeling that something special is happening, or a star maybe being born. The best teen sex comedies feel at some point dangerous and reckless, as if one or more characters might just do anything, but the wackiness and outrage in College feels never less than manufactured. Caldwell merely comes across as the guy cast when Jonah Hill quickly passed without reading, and Bell, a huge Nickelodeon star courtesy of Drake & Josh, is a milquetoast lead. I wouldn’t waste a $6 drink, but I understand that teen’s irritation. (MGM, R, 94 minutes)
Juneau What I Mean?
Whatever one thinks about the pregnancy of the 17-year-old daughter of Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, you have to give it up for the above poster, taken from a post on Perez Hilton, a site which I most assuredly do not frequent. Rarely do satiric conceptualization, actual execution and PhotoShop persuadability so nicely intersect. Solid. Though the idea of McCain in yellow short-shorts spawns its own, entirely different level of howling discomfort.
Presidential Candidates Get (Paper) Dolled Up
Are paper dolls your thing, for some reason? Then by all means get collectible versions of both Barack Obama and John McCain, via Dover Publications’ site. The resemblances are a bit off, but McCain’s does have the stiff-arm thing going on. Looking at these, I’d love to see a film done with paper dolls, in the mold of Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s Team America: World Police. Well… a short film, maybe… more along the lines of Todd Haynes’ Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story, I guess.
In Regards to the Relatability of 3 A.M. Moose Hunting…
Republicans have fired up the “One of us!” tom-toms over John McCain‘s selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for the vice presidential slot on his ticket, and now they’re saying that having an
unmarried teenage daughter who is pregnant, a state ethics investigation stemming from a nasty child custody
battle involving a former family member, and blue-collar husband who racked up a DUI citation as a 22-year-old may all help solidify the national newcomer’s reputation as a regular American, according to this Politico piece by Charles Mahtesian.
“The media doesn’t understand life membership in the NRA; they don’t understand getting up at 3 a.m. to hunt a moose; they don’t understand eating a mooseburger; they don’t understand being married to a guy who likes to snowmobile for fun. I am not surprised that they don’t get it. But Americans get it,” says Florida Rep. Adam Putnam, who surely knows of 3 a.m. moose hunting. “A mooseburger means she is like one of us. She is not some jackass who’s ‘gone Washington.'”
Fake Tropic Thunder Documentary Hits iTunes
Beginning today, DreamWorks and Paramount are offering up Rain of Madness for exclusive download at iTunes. A companion piece to the hit comedy Tropic Thunder, the movie — shot on location in Hawaii during principal production — serves as a documentary of the making of the feature film… sort of. “We wanted to do a fake documentary about the making of the movie within the movie — which is called Tropic Thunder, not the actual movie Tropic Thunder. The fake documentary focuses on the real movie’s fake director, and what happens to the fake cast before they go into the real jungle. It’s pretty straightforward,” explains Ben Stiller.
In Regards to My Possible Secret Life as a Drug Mule…
On the heels of the release of Brad Anderson’s Transsiberian, it’s worth noting that my Mom and Dad returned from a trip to the then-Soviet Union with exactly the same sort of Russian nesting dolls that Kate Mara and Eduardo Noriega’s characters use to smuggle heroin in the movie, raising the distinct possibility that my parents were drug mules, and I was an unwitting, in utero accomplice. Though, in their defense, I don’t have any specific recollections of them screaming at me as a toddler not to lick the dolls…
Rainn Wilson Kidnaps Jenna Fischer
In order to promote his new film The Rocker, Rainn Wilson has mock-kidnapped Jenna Fischer, and stashed her in his trunk. Viral videos galore at the site, available by clicking here. B.J. Novak scores most heartily thus far.
Angelina Jolie Replaces Tom Cruise, But Not in the Way Katie Holmes Hoped
Philip Noyce’s espionage thriller Edwin A. Salt is undergoing a gender change. According to Variety, Tom Cruise is out as its lead, and Angelina Jolie, who previously worked with Noyce on The Bone Collector, is all but officially in. A sort of on-the-lam, procedural actioner, one presumes, the movie is described as being about a CIA officer who’s accused by a defector of being a Russian sleeper
spy. He… errr, now she must elude capture long enough to establish her innocence. OK, a little bit The Fugitive, a little bit Breach, a little bit another movie I’m currently blanking on… I can get on board. One wonders, though, if the title will merely receive an extra vowel, or be reworked into something lame and anonymous. If they could somehow just come up with a justification for Salt Lick, the poster would make itself, and this thing would be huuuuge…
Aasif Mandvi Only Wears a Turban on His Off Days
He’s become known for playing himself, and lowering the satirical boom as the “Middle Eastern correspondent” on Comedy Central’s hit, Peabody Award-winning The Daily Show, but Aasif Mandvi is also an OBIE award-winning actor with a successful, decade-long career that’s spanned film, television and stage. In addition to assaying the 2008 presidential election on the small screen, Mandvi will next be seen in David Koepp’s Ghost Town, with Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear.
I had a chance to catch up with Mandvi recently, and even share a mildly racist-sounding anecdote involving him. Phoning from New York, after a muggy morning of filming on his new movie, 7 to the Palace, Mandvi gamely talked about the “different kinds of brown people in the world,” dentistry, and telling off comedy superstars. For the full Q&A feature, from H Magazine, click here.
Paris Hilton Responds to McCain Campaign Ad
After having been dragged into the fray by “that wrinkly, white-haired guy,” Paris Hilton responds to John McCain’s bizarre use of her in his presidential advertising with her own campaign ad. A bit begrudgingly, I have to admit it’s kind of awesome. This sense of humor is what will keep cameras on her, and help give her a leg up on other vacuous, fame-whore starlets in a play for longevity.
Dennis Woodruff Is Still Around, Just So You Know
I missed it, from a few weeks back, but over at FilmStew, from the “keep on keepin’ on” files, Richard Horgan has up a nice happenstance-encounter riff about Dennis Woodruff, the wildly colorful and self-promoting aspirant actor-filmmaker whose armada of intricately decorated and customized automobiles are familiar to most Los Angelenos. It seems Woodruff has a new 36-minute documentary, Surfin’ in the USA, available via his web site (it sounds like his Heavy Metal Parking Lot), and is otherwise just still exercising his creativity in nutty, idiosyncratic fashion.
David Lynch’s Damn Fine Coffee Will Ship to Your Door
Old news, but filmmaker David Lynch is selling his own signature blend brand of organic coffee, don’t you know, and it’s now available on Amazon as well as through his own eponymous site. It makes me stop and think of the edible/drinkable promotional opportunities of other directors, and what a bullet’s been dodged with Oliver Stone.
Newsflash: August Movies Suck
New York Magazine‘s Vulture craps on August movies, which seems especially appropriate this year since a lot of studios are running up the white flag because of the Olympics. I skipped out on screenings of Swing Vote and The Mummy: Attack of the CGI Wildebeests and Golden Emperor Played by Jet Li (or whatever it’s called), both because they were up against one another and I had another evening commitment, but there’s an extra ring of truth to all this since Lionsgate is currently busy stalling on even communicating to me the Los Angeles theaters in which their new, not-screened-for-critics horror flick, Midnight Meat Train, is opening this week. That’s a good sign.
Amy Smart’s Breasts Are Drunk
The ass-baring candid shots of Amy Smart bitch-tossing Corey Haim into cars, from the Los Angeles production of Crank 2, were but the first wave of awesome set shots unleashed by the Jason Statham-starring action sequel. There’s also this between-takes shot of Smart currently making the rounds.
I can’t tell if Smart is drying her nail polish or just keeping it real while listening to Jay-Z, but there’s something deliciously hilarious and kind of mesmerizing about the clash of managed and unmanaged accoutrement and expression in this shot that renders it more than just titillating, and thus keeps me from making any sort of “X marks the spot” joke.
Citizens Try to Go Barney Fife on Karl Rove
It’s been well established that Karl Rove is not exceedingly popular in Iowa, but good Lord, now there are even retired ministers there trying to drop citizens’ arrests on him. A former pastor — presumably not named Barney Fife — and three members of the Des Moines Catholic Workers community were cited for trespassing (by the real police) and released, after accusing Rove of “election fraud and conspiracy to commit offense or to defraud the United States in the time before the Iraq War.”
Didn’t See That Coming…
I don’t want to say that The X-Files: I Want to Believe is about gay Russian émigré organ harvesters… and yet it is. More to soon follow.
David Zucker Readies Michael Moore Takedown
David Zucker, the director and writer who helped create Airplane! and The Naked Gun
franchise, has called on Hollywood’s tiny but tightly knit Republican
A-list to help him craft a takedown of Michael Moore in the form of a broad yet unusually right-leaning
political satire titled An American Carol, according to Politico’s Jeffrey Ressner. Zucker and his associates have been keeping the film under fairly tight
wraps for months, avoiding any mention of its political perspective by describing the
movie to Hollywood trades in casting updates as only “a spoof of A Christmas Carol and contemporary American
culture.”
The low-budget indie co-stars Emmy winner Kelsey Grammer, with Jon Voight, Dennis Hopper, Paris Hilton and frequent Zucker stooge Leslie Nielsen in minor roles. Release is planned sometime by year’s end; the director, a self-described “Sept. 11 Republican,” suggested Friday, Sept. 12, to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the 2001 terrorist attacks. For more from the Politico, including plot specifics, click here.
Amy Smart Shows Ass, Bitch-Tosses Corey Haim
If it’s Amy Smart bitch-tossing Corey Haim into cars (well, his extra, with him lurking in the background) that you crave, then Crank 2 is clearly the film for you. If it’s nice candid shots of Smart’s ass, from said production, that you want, then merely click here. Check back later in the week and we’ll do the nipple-taped candid shots…