Look at this shit! It’s Wednesday afternoon, and time for The Franco File , Movieline’s daily — at least for this week — coverage of James Franco’s genre- and gender-bending multimedia artistry. On Monday, I brought you, “Hangin’With Da Dopeboys, ” the JF-directed video from Florida rapper Dangeruss, who inspired the actor’s Alien character in Spring Breakers . On Tuesday, it was time for another Franco-helmed clip for his band Daddy. And today? Another clip! But this one’s more of a rap video, in which Franco does a turn-off-your-cellphones PSA for the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX that riffs on one of Alien’s Spring Breakers monologues and references key moments from Pulp Fiction and Spider-Man . The video has like three endings, too, which is part of Franco’s I’m-flying-on-instruments genius. Look at this shit! Now, look at this shit: Thighs Wide Shut has put together a most excellent Oz The Great and Powerful meets Spring Breakers mash-up video that will most surely make Franco jealous that he did not think of it first. It’s called Oz Breakers: That was fun, with a capital F, as in…Franco! Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
After Cloud Atlas ‘s Fantastic Fest debut I caught up with Lana Wachowski at the Alamo Drafthouse’s Highball, where she and Andy, AKA Wachowski Starship , were beaming and greeting festgoers. (I’m told they were given a tour of the Highball’s private karaoke rooms but didn’t partake in Austin’s favored pastime.) Conversation landed on Michelle Obama, of course (the two best sets of arms in the biz? Michelle Obama and Lana Wachowski), and that’s when Lana dropped a revelation in true Cloud Atlas style: “She went to our high school!” True enough — it happens Chicago’s Whitney M. Young High School turned out the First Lady in ’81, Lana in ’83, and Andy in ’86. Everything is connected, indeed. [ More from Fantastic Fest… ]
No one, as far as I know, has come to the Berlinale in search of Gillian Anderson, the strawberry-blonde vixen who set millions of hearts aflutter — and not just male ones — with her role in the supernaturally beloved ’90s show The X-Files . But Anderson has surprised those of us who love her by showing up — in small roles, but still — in two films here, James Marsh’s Shadow Dancer and Ursula Meier’s Sister . In Shadow Dancer , a thriller set in early-‘90s Belfast, she’s a British secret-service officer who squares off against a colleague (played by Clive Owen). In Sister , she’s the well-heeled patron of a tony Swiss ski resort — and a mom — who befriends a young thief and rapscallion who barely knows what it means to be a child. Anderson hasn’t really been in hiding. She was one of the best things — perhaps the only good thing — in last year’s Johnny English Reborn , and she recently played Miss Havisham in the British TV adaptation of Great Expectations . She chooses her roles carefully and doesn’t seem particularly attracted to big Hollywood vehicles — though it’s more likely that Hollywood isn’t particularly interested in her, which is certainly its loss. There are plenty of movies to parse and examine here at the Berlinale, but at dinner last night with some colleagues (who happened to be guys), Anderson came up in the conversation, and we just looked at one another: “Gosh! Isn’t she something?” is the gist of what we said. Perhaps we love her more because she shows up so infrequently and so fleetingly, like a ginger comet. Her role in Shadow Dancer is small and tokenlike, but it’s interesting for its metallic coldness, not a quality we usually associate with Anderson. Then again, maybe it’s really just a mirror angle of the clinical skepticism she brought to the role of Dana Scully in The X-Files : She’s good at playing characters who can turn the warmth off when it gets in the way of the goal at hand, and in Shadow Dancer , she plays a character who’s all about goals. In Sister , Anderson isn’t strawberry blonde but truly blonde, and the first glimpse we get of her is a mane of glorious, rich-girl hair. At first I could see only the oblique planes of her face and, not knowing she was in the movie, I thought to myself, “Could it be…?” Her role is small but potent: Her character, skiing at the resort with her own kids, meets the young thief Simon (played, beautifully, by a kid actor named Kacey Mottet Klein), and the two are immediately charmed by each other. He pretends to be a the son of the resort’s owner, when really he’s a mighty mite of a hustler who scrambles to make a living for himself and his sister (Léa Seydoux). Anderson scrutinizes his face as he advertises this fanciful false background — you can see, in this tiny but potent scene, that she’s amused by him and yet somehow, instinctively, she also feels protective. It’s not that she doesn’t believe his tale (she seems to buy it all); it’s that her better judgment tells her that this kid is in need of something, and though she can’t be the one to provide it, she grants him the kindest gift she can: She takes him seriously, reacting to him as if he were the miniature adult he’s trying so desperately to be, meeting him on his own scrappy turf. That’s a lot to pack into a few small scenes, and it’s a bit frustrating that her character’s role in the drama isn’t better worked out — her final encounter with Simon doesn’t feel true to the woman we met earlier. On the whole, the picture is unevenly worked out, but it’s ultimately touching, thanks to the bittersweet grace notes scattered throughout. Anderson is one of those grace notes; her presence is as subtle as a sigh, but it’s the kind that sticks with you long after the credits roll. Read more of Movieline’s Berlinale coverage here . Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
A collectible poster debut from the boutique art purveyors over at Mondo is always an event, but this Valentine’s Day Mondo and the Alamo Drafthouse have something in store so special it’s almost… inconceivable ! In celebration of the 25th anniversary of Rob Reiner’s 1987 fantasy classic The Princess Bride , the good folks at the Drafthouse have created a line of Princess Bride -themed wines (“The Bottle of Wits”) to coincide with a series of V-Day Princess Bride Quote-Along Feast events and a new illustrated commemorative poster by artist Drew Millward , which goes on sale today. Get the exclusive first look at Millward’s poster design after the jump! [Ed.: According to Mondo the Princess Bride posters have indeed been printed with the incorrect year and will be sold as planned, warts and all. ] Even 25 years after its debut, The Princess Bride , adapted from William Goldman’s book of the same name, has sustained its place among the best-loved American romances and comedies; you’d be hard pressed to find a self-respecting film lover these days who can’t conjure one of countless iconic lines from Reiner’s film. (See Movieline’s account of LACMA and Film Independent’s magical Princess Bride live-read for further evidence.) So it’s kind of perfect that the Drafthouse will host the Princess Bride Quote-Along Feast events this week at its six theaters in Austin and Houston on Feb. 14, in San Antonio on Feb. 15, and in Winchester, Va. on Feb. 16. What better way is there to spend Valentine’s Day than feasting on seared R.O.U.S. (“NY strip rubbed with telecherry peppercorn, mustard seed and espresso roasted medium rare in a pool of port demi, roast enoki mushrooms with mushroom risotto and grilled rapini”) and MLTs (for which “the mutton is shaved paper thin”) and toasting to “Twue Wuv” along with Westley, Buttercup and little Fred Savage? Millward’s whimsical Mondo poster (on sale at the Austin Quote-Along locations, printed in a limited run of 145) brings together the film’s most iconic elements (the six-fingered man! The R.O.U.Ses!) and its central heroes, from Cary Elwes’ The Man in Black to Robin Wright’s Princess Buttercup, the bouffant-coiffed Spaniard Inigo Montoya, Andre the Giant’s gentle Fezzik and Wallace Shawn’s evil Vizzini, who was last seen laughing maniacally while sloshing a goblet of wine. Speaking of wine… Inconceivable Cab and As You Wish White are the two varietals of Princess Bride wine available for order online ($28) at http://princessbridewine.com and at the Drafthouse locations starting today. The pairing of The Princess Bride with its own wine is an inspired concept that came from a brainstorming session by Drafthouse CEO Tim League and Co.: “At the end of last year, we were thinking about ideas to do something really fun with our wine list at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema. To solve that challenge, a group of us got together after work, opened a bottle (a time-honored Alamo tradition) and started to brainstorm our favorite movie scenes involving wine. Quickly The Princess Bride rose to the top. The Princess Bride is one of our all-time favorite films. It stands beside The Big Lebowski as a movie that I will ALWAYS watch and thoroughly enjoy revisiting when it comes on TV. The ‘Battle of Wits’ sequence between Cary Elwes and Wallace Shawn easily stands toe-to-toe with ‘the Sideways Spit Bucket’ and ‘The Silence of the Lambs Chianti slurp’ as wine’s shining moment in film. We contacted the rights-holders and proposed a partnership to launch the product at the Alamo, and they were just as excited as we were. We are thrilled with the collectible bottle that Helms Workshop produced for us and think that fans of the movie will love it too. Although we can’t print it on the label because of legal reasons, we also promise each bottle to most likely be iocane free.” Get more info at the Alamo Drafthouse website .
No one is immune to the Alamo Drafthouse’s strict no texting policy, not even comedian Patton Oswalt. Recently, Oswalt was in Austin promoting his new film Young Adult when the notorious Tweeter was caught on his phone in a well-lit, sparsely populated theater. Director Jason Reitman then walked in to kick him out and…wait a minute, this is a joke! After the jump, watch Reitman and Oswalt parody… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : /Film Discovery Date : 14/12/2011 08:04 Number of articles : 2
Wondering how Paul Thomas Anderson and David Schwimmer could be forever connected? Try Upton Sinclair. In a new interview with Empire Online , Schwimmer confirmed that he has “commissioned an adaptation of The Jungle ,” Sinclair’s 1906 novel about immigration and the meat-packing industry. Fingers crossed this latest Sinclair film adaptation works as well as There Will Be Blood . [ Empire ]
When fans of Wes Anderson ‘s 1996 debut feature Bottle Rocket heard that the iconic motel used in the film was in danger of going under, they sprung into action to save it. So this July 9, devotees will gather en masse in Hillsboro, Texas for the ultimate event, hosted by the Alamo Drafthouse : a special screening of Bottle Rocket , with co-star Robert Musgrave in attendance, held at the very same motel off of I-5 where aimless crooks Dignan, Anthony, and Bob hide out in the film.
Alice Krige's Borg Queen oozes sensuality and creepiness in this new poster from Mondo, the Alamo Drafthouse's collectible art boutique. We're bringing you an exclusive first look at the Star Trek: First Contact poster before it goes on sale Thursday. We brought you an exclusive look at one of Mondo's Star Wars posters before it went on sale a while back, and now here's a Star Trek counterpart. This First Contact poster is the work of artist Ken Taylor, and it's the first Mondo Star Trek poster to focus on one of the movies instead of an original series episode. Says Mondo creative director Justin Ishmael: The first two releases in our STAR TREK series focused on episodes from the original series. SPACE SEED and THE TROUBLE WITH TRIBBLES both featured iconic characters and creatures, so we decided to focus on one of the most recognized and loved of all STAR TREK characters…the Borg. Not only are the Borg incredibly interesting and visually stunning, but they function as a cohesive unit with the queen as their leader. MORE – – – http://io9.com/5626632/the-borg-queen-like-youve-never-seen-her-before/gallery/ added by: remanns
Filed under: Gary Dourdan , Maria Asis del Alamo , Hot Bodies We’ve finally figured out the best thing about ” CSI ” star Gary Dourdan — his unbelievably hot girlfriend’s perfecter-than-perfect backside. Gary and Maria Asis del Alamo were showing off what their mommas gave them this weekend while on the island of… Read more
