There’s a viral video making its way around the internet this week featuring Australian people eating food from Outback Steakhouse , and it got us thinking that there’s no substitute for authentic Australian actresses. Lots of beauties were raised on the continent like Nicole Kidman , Alice Eve , and Naomi Watts , but they weren’t born there. So let’s salute ten of the best bare babes born and bred on the Outback! From classic beauties like Jacki Weaver and Elle MacPherson to nudecomers like Alyssa Sutherland and Emily Browning , there’s a lot to love up above and down under!
An eight-minute alternate ending to David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook has landed on the Internets, and though it wraps up things a little too neatly (with virtually all of the main characters), it’s fun to watch. It also yields a quick-and-dirty recipe for braciole , those seasoned skirt-steak roll-ups that Jacki Weaver always seems to be making in the movie. My Sicilian grandmother taught me to secure the steak around a hard-boiled egg before letting it slow-cook in the pasta sauce, but the recipe Weaver employs in this clip is much simpler. (And yet, Chris Tucker just can’t seem to get the hang of it.) In this MTV exclusive, Robert De Niro also reveals a key rule of etiquette that often applies in Italian-American homes from that generation: the man of the house can sample the food his wife is preparing for dinner, but, hey-yo, everyone else has to wait. [ MTV ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Jacki Weaver says she has no Oscar game plan except to buy a new pair of shoes. “I love shoes. I love shiny things,” the Australian actress told Movieline this afternoon, after learning she had been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her fine work in David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook . Weaver, who plays an Italian-American Philadelphia housewife so well that you can almost smell the braciole when she’s onscreen, explained that she learned of her nomination while watching TV “in my Qantas pajamas” after flying into Los Angeles en route to Texas for her next acting gig, as Lee Harvey Oswald’s mother, in David Landesman’s Parkland . “I wasn’t sleeping well so I turned on the TV. I honestly wasn’t expecting it, and it did take me quite by surprise,” Weaver said. “I yelled out a rude word.” That word began with “f, as in Freddie,” the actress said in her jammy Australian accent. “And it sounded like the way Australians say ‘park,'” she explained. “We drop the ‘r’ and say, ‘pahk.'” She went on to explain that said word is “a term of wonderment” in her country,” then laughed: I don’t know why I don’t just say the word.” She never did, but did tell us that she had not spoken to her fellow cast members and nominees, Robert De Niro , Bradley Cooper or Jennifer Lawrence , but had talked to Russell. “He told me that he’s really proud of me and he’s thrilled,” she said. “I adore David.” She likes Americans a lot, too. Weaver explained that “I haven’t changed but my life has changed,” in the two years she since earned her first Oscar nomination for the brutal 2010 Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom . “I’ve now done my fifth film in America and to be embraced so heartily by Americans has been wonderful. It’s a very generous culture, American culture,” she added. “I know you can’t generalize 300 million people, but everyone I’ve met her has been so lovely to me.” Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
After a five-year absence from the movie business, comic Chris Tucker makes his return to the big screen this weekend in a quasi-dramatic role in David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook . But he’s not leaving comedy behind. At the New York premiere party for the film on Monday night, Tucker told me that he’s producing a film of his stand-up act. At the party, which took place in the lobby of the Royalton hotel and its restaurant Forty Four and drew Silver Linings cast members Robert De Niro , Bradley Cooper , Jacki Weaver, Julia Stiles and Russell, Tucker told me that one of the reasons he hasn’t been in a movie for so long is that “I wanted to go back and do stand-up.” When I asked if a TV special would result, he explained that he’d just shot a “stand-up movie” over the weekend in Atlanta, Ga. “We don’t have a name for it yet, but it’s a movie like Eddie Murphy’s Raw and Delirious ,” he said. The Rush Hour 3 actor said that he was producing the picture himself and that it’s “coming out early next year.” In Silver Linings Playbook , Tucker plays Danny, a friend of Bradley Cooper’s character, and a former mental institution patient. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
I wouldn’t brag were it not Monday morning and it’s the only thing keeping me from walking in front of a bus, so: The final piece of Movieline’s Sundance 2012 Bidding-War puzzle has fallen into place, with director James Ponsoldt’s boozehound relationship drama Smashed going to the estimable Sony Pictures Classics. Five-for-five! High five? Smashed is the last of the year’s projected Sundance darlings to officially find a distribution deal, with The Surrogate , Bachelorette , Arbitrage and Red Lights all spoken for in the month-plus since the festival came and went. Moreover, its showcase for Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a young teacher battling the vicissitudes of alcoholism may yet prove to fall in line with SPC’s recent underdog awards tradition — the one that found Melissa Leo ( Frozen River ) and Jacki Weaver ( Animal Kingdom ) coming out of late-summer platform releases to compete with the mainstream favorites at the Oscars. (A press release sent to Movieline HQ did not specify a release date.) “The role asks Winstead to run the full gamut, from game good-time girl and stimulating teacher to shell-shocked morning-after casualty and adamant survivor,” wrote Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy from Park City. “She’s terrific at it all, far surpassing the promise she indicated in Death Proof and Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World .” Probably not coincidentally, recently crowned Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer and Breaking Bad Emmy-winner Aaron Paul co-star. Everybody in the awards pool, etc. Or not, just throwing that out there. Either way, congrats to Team Smashed ! Morning hours notwithstanding, surely this calls for a drink? Whatever, I’m having one anyway. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
I wouldn’t brag were it not Monday morning and it’s the only thing keeping me from walking in front of a bus, so: The final piece of Movieline’s Sundance 2012 Bidding-War puzzle has fallen into place, with director James Ponsoldt’s boozehound relationship drama Smashed going to the estimable Sony Pictures Classics. Five-for-five! High five? Smashed is the last of the year’s projected Sundance darlings to officially find a distribution deal, with The Surrogate , Bachelorette , Arbitrage and Red Lights all spoken for in the month-plus since the festival came and went. Moreover, its showcase for Mary Elizabeth Winstead as a young teacher battling the vicissitudes of alcoholism may yet prove to fall in line with SPC’s recent underdog awards tradition — the one that found Melissa Leo ( Frozen River ) and Jacki Weaver ( Animal Kingdom ) coming out of late-summer platform releases to compete with the mainstream favorites at the Oscars. (A press release sent to Movieline HQ did not specify a release date.) “The role asks Winstead to run the full gamut, from game good-time girl and stimulating teacher to shell-shocked morning-after casualty and adamant survivor,” wrote Hollywood Reporter critic Todd McCarthy from Park City. “She’s terrific at it all, far surpassing the promise she indicated in Death Proof and Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World .” Probably not coincidentally, recently crowned Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer and Breaking Bad Emmy-winner Aaron Paul co-star. Everybody in the awards pool, etc. Or not, just throwing that out there. Either way, congrats to Team Smashed ! Morning hours notwithstanding, surely this calls for a drink? Whatever, I’m having one anyway. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The first trailer for The Five-Year Engagement has arrived, and only time will tell where it falls on Universal chief Ron Meyer’s well-known quality-control spectrum . Does the story of one couple’s protracted wedding plan look funny enough? Sure. Will Emily Blunt and Jason Segel bring in the dates and the dudes alike? Why not? But do you know what really sells this movie? I can barely even write it.
If you’ve been reading the Oscar Index , you realize that the Best Supporting Actress Oscar is this year’s wild card. Will Melissa Leo prevail in spite of her considerable pomp? Will Hailee Steinfeld come from behind with a victory? Will Helena Bonham Carter just be awesome always? It’s a toss-up. Movieline’s own Julie Miller and yours truly are mapping out the telecast’s most exciting award with a play-by-play of the nominee announcement, the winner, and the ensuing fight in the Kodak Theater.
Has awards season become a tad repetitive for your tastes? Sure, the recent surge by The King’s Speech over The Social Network is exciting, I suppose, but at this point how many awards can we see Natalie Portman and Colin Firth win against basically the same competition before we all collectively throw up our hands and say, “OK, we get it. Can we just move on to the Oscars now? Or at least try something different ?” Here’s an idea: What if every single awards ceremony were important?
Longtime proponents of Animal Kingdom co-star Jacki Weaver were thrilled this morning to hear their hero’s name announced among this year’s five Best Supporting Actress Oscar nominees. And the Australian legend’s warm if brief response has just come over the transom at Team Jacki HQ: “I’m elated to the point of euphoria. I feel like I’m in a walking dream. I’m so relieved that all those millions of Australians that wanted me to get this nomination aren’t disappointed. Happy Australia Day.” Aw! To you as well, Ms. Weaver. That said, this got serious today — and we need more than press statements. We need a slogan; we need a battle cry .
