Happy Thursday! Also in this edition of The Broadsheet: A Farrelly-sanctioned Dumb and Dumber sequel gets moving (slightly)… Signs point to Still Seas for Guillermo del Toro… The only defense of Shame ‘s NC-17 that you’ll need… John Carpenter’s first student film discovered… and more.
Congrats to Lynne Ramsay, Tilda Swinton and the rest of Team We Need to Talk About Kevin , which knocked off the awards-y likes of The Descendants , The Artist and Shame to emerge as best in show at this year’s BFI London Film Festival. “We were struck by the sheer panache displayed by these great storytellers,” said jury chief John Madden. “In the end, we were simply bowled over by one film, a sublime, uncompromising tale of the torment that can stand in the place of love.” Yowza! Sounds like my Friday nights. Someone give me a trophy! [ THR ]
Sometimes directors with certain strengths try to stretch different muscles and you desperately wish they wouldn’t: Woody Allen getting all serious with Interiors comes to mind. But Roland Emmerich, taking a break from cavorting with woolly mammoths and blowing up the world, is onto something with Anonymous , an intricate — if not terribly convincing — historical thriller positing that a minor Elizabethan poet named Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford, and not William Shakespeare, wrote all those plays and sonnets that the world loves so well.
What to say about the first glimpse of Curly, Moe and Larry in the Farrelly Brothers’ long-awaited updating of The Three Stooges ? That Halloween came early for Will Sasso, Chris Diamantopoulos and Sean Hayes? Really, I’ve got nothing. Help?
The Guinness Book of World Records isn’t just for nausea-inducing photos of 50-inch fingernails and fat twins on motorcycles anymore. The sprawling oracle of milestones far and wide has gone practical this week, revealing the screen actor whose body of work has accrued the highest collective gross in history. It’s not the most obvious fellow, but considering his ubiquity, franchise successes and long trail of cultural landmarks, it makes sense. Think hard, and read on for the answer to the trivia question you’ll be flinging with relish all weekend.
The Lorax is one of Dr. Seuss’s most didactic books, which makes it seem less intriguing as a candidate for the big screen. But avast! The trailer for the animated The Lorax — which features the voices of Danny DeVito, Zac Efron, Taylor Swift, Betty White, and Ed Helms — is positively fresh and ebullient. Forests of Pez-colored pompoms! Popsicle-colored streets! An environmentally friendly message dressed up in Tropical Skittles! It’s a must-watch.
The Double shows its cards right away, when the screen fills with a cable news show on which a congressman insists “Russia’s back!,” noting that the country has reignited its nuclear program, its president is openly hostile toward the U.S. and it has more covert agents inside our borders than ever before. Russia’s back, baby!
Now that I’m finally over The Blind Side ‘s undeserved Oscar presence, I can get back to celebrating the things I love about Sandra Bullock. She is feisty! And sincere! And funny! In 1991, she’d apparently already nailed down that Bullockian trifecta, because she is positively charming in this audition tape from the beginning of her career. Check it out after the jump, along with the rest of Buzz Break (including Lindsay Lohan’s newest $1 million offer).
Benicio Del Toro, Jimmy Smits and Esai Morales are among the stars named in a protest of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ new rule to block Puerto Rico from competing in the Foreign-Language Oscar race.
In the upcoming political thriller The Double , Topher Grace and Richard Gere star as an unlikely duo of intelligence agents paired to solve the mystery of a senator’s murder. The twisty plot leads them through a trail involving a psychopathic Soviet assassin (Stephen Moyer), Shakespearean code names and one double (get it) identity that culminates with a surprising ending in screenwriter Michael Brandt’s ( 3:10 to Yuma , Wanted ) directorial debut.