A former New York University film professor made headlines recently for suing the school, which he said fired him for giving barely present graduate student James Franco a D in his class. José Angel Santana alleges not only racist employment practices at NYU, but also that, “In my opinion, they’ve turned the NYU graduate film degree into swag for James Franco’s purposes, a possession, something you can buy.” Burn. Anyway, none of this would matter were it not for the requisite Taiwanese news animation showcasing both Santana’s firing and a reimagining of 127 Hours that’s quite possibly better than Danny Boyle’s film itself.
Did this guy have to cut his arm off with a pocket-knife too?? Hit the jump and find out! A 64-year-old hiker named Amos Wayne Richards survived 96 hours (that’s four days, people!) trapped in Utah’s Canyonlands National Park with a broken leg and dislocated shoulder. What was he doing out there in the first place? Why, he was inspired by the film 127 Hours starring James Franco! So how did this all happen? It seems like the North Carolina native took the film—based on Aron Ralston’s real-life journey—a little too much to heart and decided to go on the same hiking trip earlier this month through Little Blue John Canyon that Ralston embarked on, according to published reports. Things didn’t go exactly as planned. The 127 Hours super-fan took a ten-foot fall, which broke his leg and dislocated his shoulder. Ironically enough, Richards found himself trapped not far from where Ralston had to cut off his arm with a pocketknife. “It took me about three or four minutes to work my shoulder and get it back in place,” Richards told WBTV in Charlotte. “Once I got it back in place, I stood up and realized my ankle hurt a little bit.” Thankfully, park rangers realized something was wrong when the hiker failed to return to his campsite and searched for Richards. Two days later, they found his car near the Little Blue John trailhead. Once rescued, Richards, who had been slowly dragging himself back the way he had come, was treated for a shattered leg and dehydration and is now recuperating in North Carolina. Sorry chief, but that movie isn’t exactly inspirational, more of a cautionary tale if anything. It isn’t like people rushed to the beaches after JAWS came out…SMH Source
“[ Hysteria director Tanya] Wexler said she gave everybody on set a vibrator. But getting them there caused a bit of embarrassment for a security guard at a Heathrow airport luggage checkpoint. ‘The officer said, “You have 20 or 30 small electronic devices in your luggage,” and I said, “Yes, they’re vibrators,” and the guy just said, “Move along,”‘ she recalled. [Maggie] Gyllenhaal said she was awash with gift vibrators from friends by the end of filming.” Yowza! So, uh, why isn’t there more post-Toronto buzz ? [ NYDN ]
The Web experienced one of those slow-news-week stirrings last weekend when a seller on eBay put up incontrovertible photographic evidence (ahem) of Nicolas Cage chilling for a portrait back around the time of the Civil War. Cage is undead, the argument (AHEM) went, and so what better way to capitalize on this bracing phenomenological development than to unload the 19th-century artifact to the highest bidder? Anyway, that auction came and went, but not without the definitive, deeply necessary 60-second animated recap you were praying for.
You think the Oscars selection process gets political here? Just imagine sitting in the room when Russia’s national Oscar committee grudgingly voted for Nikita Mikalhkov’s enormous critical and commercial bomb, Burnt by the Sun 2: Citadel ( Utomlyonnye solntsem 2: Predstoyanie ), to become the country’s official foreign language selection. Filmmaker and committee head Vladimir Menshov so strongly opposed the pick of the $45 million flop that he’s now lobbying publicly for the film’s director to pull out of the race.
I know we all kind of visualize Taylor Lautner as a big strapping serving of beefcake and cheese, but the Abduction star is sensitive, too. Just ask him how he reacted to both the end of production and an early-edit screening of Breaking Dawn, Part 1 . Or don’t ask him! Fine! Either way, here’s your Buzz Break.
Whether he is playing a cultural icon, a pajama bottomed-stoner or a soap opera performance artist “whose canvas is murder,” James Franco oftentimes relies on a gravely stage whisper to deliver his lines. From anyone else’s mouth, it would sound creepy, but coming from Franco, it is acceptable and even worthy of Academy Award recognition.* In celebration of his patented delivery, New York Magazine has assembled sixty seconds worth of the actor’s most inspired dramatic whisper work over the past decade. Click through for take-off.
Oh, wow. Five months of awards coverage flies by so fast, but believe it: The ballots are in , the tuxes are tailored and the jewels are being rented as we speak. And the 2011 Academy Awards are right around the corner. This means, of course, one final trip to Movieline’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics for the final Oscar Index of the 2010-11 season. Get the Kleenex, and let’s see what there is to see…
Awards-season slump aside, 127 Hours is on a roll in at least one of Hollywood’s most closely watched demographics: Illegal downloaders. A new report has the James Franco film way out in front of Oscar competition True Grit and Inception ; the revelation follows word that distributor Fox Searchlight will eschew SAG screeners for 127 and Black Swan in favor of secure iTunes downloads. Of course this whole thing royally screws up Movieline’s 127 Hours Fainting Tracker , but that’s the biz. Congrats? [ THR ]
