Director David O. Russell and the cast tell MTV News how resisting typecasting brings the best performances. By Kase Wickman, reporting by Josh Horowitz
We bet this dirty dog will be teaching them co-eds a thing or two… Via NYDailyNews reports : City university will pay $150,000 to former CIA Director David Petraeus to teach two classes in the next school year, a CUNY official said Monday. The salary is substantially higher than most visiting professors, but it will be covered through private fund-raising, not taxpayer dollars, CUNY spokesman Michael Arena said. Petraeus, who resigned from the CIA last year after admitting an affair with his biographer, will be a visiting public policy professor at CUNY’s Macaulay Honors College. CUNY announced the appointment in April but did not disclose his salary, which was reported by Gawker.com. “He’s teaching two courses . . . and giving some public lectures,” Arena said. Before leading the CIA, Petraeus was a four-star general who commanded the coalition forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. SMH. Must be nice. Had it been a black man — nevermind. Just sayin’ though. Continue reading →
So there’s a new Pacific Rim trailer out. It’s not a whole lot different from the last one that was released, and, like the last one, it leaves me with one big suspension-of-disbelief problem. I can’t say I’m a student of the whole Gundam/Jaeger/Voltron school of big bad-ass mechanical suits, but every time I see the scene — that’s been in both trailers — in which two side-by-side soldiers operate the legs of the fighting machine by running in place, I have to ask, why would any defense contractor build a weapon that would requite more than one independent-thinking individual to operate it? I know that there’s some kind of neural piloting system called “pons” that keeps everyone in the Jaeger operating as one, but, I mean, those soldiers look pretty strapped in place. What if one of them gets a cramp? It looks like Guillermo Del Toro is going for a Real Steel meets Fritz Lang’s Metropolis by way of Michael Bay’s Transformers -type vibe, but I keep thinking that, on a logical level, operating one of these Jaegers would be a coordination nightmare, particularly in the heat of battle. And if I had Idris Elba yelling in my earpiece all day, I’d have an even bigger problem staying in sync. Also, if you look at this Defense Advanced Projects Research Agency (DARPA) video, the future of robotic warfare looks like the only humans required will be those operating the remote controls. (That AlphaDog just won’t go down.) Why make it more complicated than that? I’m betting that some Pacific Rim super fan out there will have answers to my questions and restore logic and balance to my world. Leave them in the comments section below. [ScreenRant ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Sony Pictures Classics took North American rights to the latest film by Woody Allen , starring Alec Baldwin , Cate Blanchett , Bobby Cannavale and more. Also in Tuesday’s news round-up, Australia’s Academy picks its nominees just two days before the Oscar noms; the Domestic Box Office hits a record; Mark Romanek is exiting Cinderella ; and R.I.P. director David R. Ellis. Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine Headed to Theaters Allen’s latest starring Alec Baldwin, Cate Blanchett, Bobby Cannavale, Louis C.K., Andrew Dice Clay, Sally Hawkins, Peter Sarsgaard and Michael Stuhlbarg, which centers on the final stages of an acute crisis and a life of a fashionable New York housewife will head to theaters via Sony Pictures Classics. Silver Linings Playbook , Lincoln and Zero Dark Thirty Tom Australian Academy Nominations The nominees for Australia’s International Award for Best Film include: Argo , Les Misérables , Life of Pi, Lincoln , Silver Linings Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty . More nominations from the organization available on Deadline . Domestic Box Office Sets 2012 Record The U.S. box office hit a record $10.8 billion with a 6 percent rise in admissions, the largest in more than a decade. The foreign box office is also ahead of the $22.4 billion set in 2011, Variety reports . Mark Romanek Exiting Disney’s Cinderella The studio and Romanek are parting ways on the updated fairy tale that has Cate Blanchett attached to star. The two apparently did not see eye to eye on how to re-tell the story, with Romanek preferring a darker version of the story, Deadline reports . Director David R. Ellis Dead at 60 The veteran stuntman and director of Snakes on a Plane and Final Destination 2 died Monday morning in Johannesburg, South Africa prepping to direct is anime adaptation, Kite . The project wold have re-teamed Ellis with his Snakes on a Plane star Samuel L. Jackson, Variety reports .
Power of that P… Paula Broadwell Is David Petraeus’ Mistress CIA Director David Petraeus’ steamy extramarital affair led to his shocking resignation. The four star general-turned spy chief, 60, had an illicit relationship with the married Paula Broadwell during which he sent her a barrage of explicit emails including explicit ones about having “sex under the desk.” According to RadarOnline reports: Broadwell served for more than a decade in the U.S. Army, earning the rank of Major. Department of Defense and CIA jobs followed. She then received her Masters degree at Harvard, and began competing in Ironman triathlons She became a researcher at Harvard and first met Petraeus six years ago when she was a researcher at Harvard pursuing her PhD, and he came to speak at the university. With her radiologist husband, Scott, she has two young sons, Lucien and Landon. “As a working mother of two, I realize it is more difficult to compete in certain areas. I think it is important for working moms to recognize that family is the most important,” she said earlier this year. Broadwell become involved with Petraeus when she took on the project of researching him. When he went to Afghanistan as head of the coalition’s efforts she was embedded with him for a year, between July 2010 and 2011. She reportedly broke off the affair after he became CIA chief on September 5, 2011. Her biography, All In: The Education of General David Petraeus, was published in February. Their romance was uncovered by accident six months ago when the FBI began an investigation into whether a computer used by Petraeus had been compromised. After stepping down from his post on Friday, Petraeus released a statement in which he apologized for his actions. Petraeus worked closely with his mistress and she even had close encounters with his wife…. DAMN! The akward moment when your side ho is sitting with your main chick. He had to have known he was going to get caught up. Check out more photos of the military mistress below, was she worth it? Paula Broadwell/AP
“What you are about to witness are stunts performed by experienced professionals.” So warns the new trailer for The Three Stooges , which is here to punish you with yet more inane, terrible-looking slapstick yuks . Indeed. Weep for the careers of the “professionals” prostrating themselves herein in the name of entertainment and watch the trailer, if you dare. Perhaps a more telling warning, also from the new reel which is completely devoid of plot, because who needs that, is the line “Before Jackass … there was dumbass.” Sure, Johnny Knoxville’s band of merry pranksters also subjected themselves to idiotic stunts for comedy’s sake, but you know what? Theirs was a shared pursuit of increasing stakes, pushing the human body to its limit, testing boundaries both physical and cultural while, yes, hitting each other in the balls. The Three Stooges, at least from the looks of this forced iteration of slapstick slumming as embodied by Sean Hayes, Will Sasso, and Chris Diamantopolous (not to mention the Farrelly brothers), is just so utterly soul-crushing. I suppose there’s the possibility that the film will reveal some stroke of mad genius not apparent in these trailers, but I’m betting that’s a slim chance. Are you brave enough to find out come April 13? [ Yahoo! ]
What’s the Film : The Sitter (2011), new on DVD and Blu-ray via 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment Why it’s an Inessential Essential : Director David Gordon Green’s transition from being an American indie darling to a reviled slacker-comedy pumper-outter is kind of astonishing. One minute, he’s being praised for being the Terrence Malick-inspired director of such films as George Washington and All The Real Girls ; the next he’s being put down for making lazy pot comedies like Your Highness and The Sitter . But the thing of it is: Green’s comedies don’t deserve to be compared to good movies. The Sitter in particular is a goofy, strange and very sloppy comedy that also happens to feature frequently inspired comedic performances from Jonah Hill and Sam Rockwell. It’s also a rare slacker comedy where a slovenly ditz who only succeeds in spite of himself never lets us forget that he’s an “asshole” (“Come on, Ricky Martin, let’s get out of here”), a “pussy” (“No, I’m a whole different pussy now”), and a total spaz (“Let that debris fall across your face, girl.”). Consistency is no longer (and I’d argue never was) Green’s strong suit. But in the realm of the slacker comedy, The Sitter is actually all right . Hill stars as Noah Griffith, a nerd too self-absorbed to see that his girlfriend Marisa (Ari Graynor) is stringing him along. To help his divorcee of a mother go out on a date, Noah reluctantly elects to baby-sit three of the most grating problem children ever committed to screen: Rodrigo (Kevin Hernandez), a cherry bomb-dropping psychopath; Slater (Max Records), a histrionically repressed blueblood; and Blithe (Landry Bender), a “celebutante”-obsessed prima donna. But on top of that, Noah also has to buy cocaine from Karl (Rockwell), a body-builder-obsessed drug dealer, and avoid being arrested. How the DVD/Blu Makes the Case for the Film : The “Totally Irresponsible” edition of the film confirms a lot of my suspicions about why The Sitter ’s 81-minute theatrical cut is so all over the place. The bloopers and outtakes reels show that Green cut out a number of superior improvisational scenes. But on top of that, the already-brief 86-minute “unrated cut” actually features some footage that helps to foreshadow later scenes, such as a deleted scene where [ SPOILER ALERT ] Noah realizes Slater’s sexuality after seeing the boy stare furtively at a gay couple on the subway. [ END SPOILER ALERT ] More importantly, the deleted scenes and outtakes are a good reminder that The Sitter wouldn’t even be bearable were it not for Jonah Hill — and, to a lesser extent, Sam Rockwell’s — performances. Hill’s reactions to the film’s pint-sized terrors really carries the film. Some of the unused scenes that he and Rockwell improv are gut-bustingly random, like when Hill bitches out an effete-looking valet who loses Noah’s minivan (long story) by whining, “You didn’t lose your Vin Diesel poster,” and “You didn’t lose your Stray Cats box set!” As bad as Green’s instincts may have been when it came to The Sitter ’s kiddy-centric humor, you really can’t say that he didn’t get a good turn out of Hill — when he gave him enough space to work, that is. Other Interesting Trivia : In the “Sits-and-Giggles” outtakes reel, there’s shots of an unused green-screened sequence where Sam Rockwell and Jonah Hill fight on a carousel. At one point, Hill jokes about needing a safe word, though it’s unclear whether he’s in character or not. I bet that scene was funny. PREVIOUSLY : Inessential Essentials: The Last Temptation of Christ on Blu-ray Simon Abrams is a NY-based freelance film critic whose work has been featured in outlets like The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Vulture and Esquire. Additionally, some people like his writing, which he collects at Extended Cut .
Director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves are ‘the right team’ to bring Stephen King’s novel to the screen, expert tells MTV News. By Terri Schwartz, with reporting by Josh Wigler “Harry Potter” Director David Yates Photo: Stephen Lovekin/ Getty Images Hot off the success of the “Harry Potter” franchise, director David Yates and screenwriter Steve Kloves are teaming up again to adapt another major literary property: Stephen King’s “The Stand,” for Warner Bros. For the uninitiated, “The Stand” is a post-apocalyptic novel that follows a group of survivors after 99.4 percent of the human race is wiped out by the effects of a biological weapon. The remaining survivors break off into two camps, one based in Boulder, Colorado, which represents good, and the other in Las Vegas, which represents evil. The two camps eventually face off in a stand that determines the future of mankind. When it comes to bringing a beloved novel to the big screen, Yates and Kloves certainly seem like the go-to pair, but “The Stand” is a different beast than “Harry Potter” in many ways. For one, the adult-oriented material is much darker than “Potter.” Drew McWeeny of HitFix , who broke the news, told MTV News he thinks the way Yates and Kloves treated the darker aspects of the “Potter” movies is a mark in their favor as they gear up for the “Stand” collaboration. “I think they’ve demonstrated as a team that they are capable of making extreme darkness palatable and ably depicting the struggle between good and evil,” McWeeny said. “It might not have been the first team I thought of to adapt that book, but it’s a damn good team.” MTV Movies Blog editor and “The Stand” fan Josh Wigler doesn’t think the movie can be made with anything less than an R rating. Similarly, McWeeny said the film won’t be an easy project for Warner Bros. to move through the studio. When McWeeny first broke the story , he said it didn’t make sense to bring “The Stand” to the screen again if it didn’t expand upon the 1994 TV miniseries — and he offered that the new element should be the very disturbing material that made the novel a hit. The novel, which features a massive cast of characters, is divided into three “books,” and the assumption is that Yates and Kloves wouldn’t attempt to adapt the story into just one movie. The larger question is whether Warner Bros. would make two movies or a trilogy out of “The Stand.” McWeeny thinks it could go either way. “I’ve been hearing that three is the magic number, creatively, and they want a trilogy,” he said. “[But] two films may just make better economic sense for them. I do think there’s a way to pull it off in two films, but that’s when you really start cutting this to the bone and that may not be best for the story itself.” With Universal having passed on Ron Howard’s ambitious attempt to adapt another King classic, “The Dark Tower,” it seems fair to presume that Yates and Kloves may worry about making “The Stand” too big. But there are many elements of “The Stand” that make it more adaptable than “Dark Tower” ever was, McWeeny said. “Even though [‘The Stand’ is] very big and has a ton of characters, there is a much more linear storytelling shape, and a simple film trilogy is something that Hollywood understands,” he explained. “Coming off the final ‘Potter’ film, I think Yates and Kloves are the right team to get almost anything made.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Photos ‘Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2’
When Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint first met each other in 2000, they never could have imagined that a decade later, they’d still be portraying the same characters. And while audiences still have one final Harry Potter movie to look forward to, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 on July 15, the three Gryffindor’s have long since finished filming. Director David Yates filmed… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : /Film Discovery Date : 22/03/2011 18:27 Number of articles : 2
W magazine publishes a series of revealing images. By Eric Ditzian Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander in W Magazine Photo: Jean-Baptiste Mondino If you thought the first official looks at Rooney Mara as the title character in “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” were a touch provocative — she posed with a bared chest and bloody hands in one, her buttocks exposed in another — you haven’t seen anything yet. W magazine has published a new series of photos of Mara as Lisbeth Salander, capturing the 25-year-old actress in an array of revealing poses. In one pic, Mara stands topless on a snowy Stockholm street, clutching her breasts and looking utterly dazed, unaware of her surroundings. Another shows the actress rocking a tiny T-shirt and tinier tutu, the expanse of her belly exposed and the makings of biceps clear in her upturned arms. This is Mara unlike we’ve seen her before; a pre-makeover image of the actress included in the photo series underscores her comprehensive transformation. Director David Fincher may have seen something in Mara when they worked together on “The Social Network,” but her Salander bares preciously zero resemblance to the ponytailed college student she played in Fincher’s current Oscar darling. Other new photos include Mara in ripped tights straddling a motorcycle (she reportedly has learned how to ride for the role); lighting a cigarette and staring into the camera as if to say, “What the f— are you looking at?”; and rocking a mohawk and looking much more vulnerable than in the tough-gal poses. Said Fincher of his conception of the character, often said to resemble a modern-day Pippi Longstocking, “Lisbeth is the goth Pippi.” Are you excited to see Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander? Tell us in the comments below! Check out everything we’ve got on “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Photos Rooney Mara: Indie Darling To Franchise Star
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