Oscar season is almost upon us, and as the Hollywood's most talented (or at least most desperate) stars prepare to launch campaigns that they hope will result in career defining gold guys and overlong acceptance speeches, we thought it would be a good time to look back at where they came from. These pics of present-day A-listers hanging with younger versions of themselves have been making the rounds online, and they serve as a pretty cool reminder that some stars never age – and some made horrendous fashion statements in the not-so-distant past. So enjoy this weird trip down red carpet memory lane. Just don't tell Little Leo he still doesn't have an Oscar ! 1. Leonardo DiCaprio in 2013 and 1989 Leo works the red carpet with young Leo. Fun fact: these two guys have won the exact same number of Oscars! 2. Amy Adams in 2014 and 1999 Amy Adams is feeling herself. Literally. We envy her right now, and it’s very confusing. 3. Christian Bale in 2013 and 1987 Christian Bale at ages 13 and 39. The way this guy transforms, he could probably still play a 6th-grader. 4. Julia Roberts in 2013 and 1989 Julia Roberts in her prime and…in her other prime. Seriously, what deal with the Devil did this woman make? 5. Matthew McConaughey in 2014 and 1996 Alright, alright, alright. Let’s all be happy Matt lost his interest in giant vampire-slayer wooden cross jewelry. 6. Meryl Streep in 1980 and 2013 Meryl Streep has aged remarkably well. We guess dominating awards season every year helps keep you young! View Slideshow
Here’s one of my favorite bikini hotties doing one of my favorite hottie pastimes: it’s Brazilian babe Ana Braga in the park doing bikini yoga. And I really don’t know why this trend hasn’t caught on more and there aren’t entire classes dedicated to this killer workout. Forget that hot yoga crap, this is clearly the hottest yoga. Enjoy. » view all 11 photos Photos: PacificCoastNews
Matthew Mcconaughey might be overly excited about the new Star Wars movie, but I have a feeling that it’s going to suck just like the rest of them. Very smart viral play though. I have a feeling we’re going to see many more celebrity reactions.
Writer-director Jeff Nichols returns with the Arkansas-set drama Mud , which vied for the Palme d’Or at Cannes and sweeps through the Sundance Film Festival this week with stars Matthew McConaughey and Reese Witherspoon in tow. Watch the film’s first trailer — which does indeed feature a shirtless McConaughey, along with simmering Southern-fried intrigue and a palpable sense of menace — and stay tuned for more updates from Park City. Synopsis: MUD is an adventure about two boys, Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland), who find a man named Mud (Matthew McConnaughey) hiding out on an island in the Mississippi. Mud describes fantastic scenarios—he killed a man in Texas and vengeful bounty hunters are coming to get him. He says he is planning to meet and escape with the love of his life, Juniper (Reese Witherspoon), who is waiting for him in town. Skeptical but intrigued, Ellis and Neckbone agree to help him. It isn’t long until Mud’s visions come true and their small town is besieged by a beautiful girl with a line of bounty hunters in tow. Mud hits theaters April 26, 2013 and also stars Sam Shepard, Michael Shannon, Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland. [via Yahoo ] Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The world premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey in New Zealand last week may have caught the attention of an entire nation and a good chunk of the world’s press, but the 166 minute feature’s New York premiere nevertheless turned into a lively event Friday night at the Ziegfeld Theater in Midtown. Peter Jackson , fittingly, kicked off the festivities introducing much of the cast, including Sir Ian McKellen (in fact there were a lot of “Sirs” Thursday night including Jackson himself), Martin Freeman , Elijah Wood , Andy Serkis and many of the dwarfs. [ Related: ‘Hobbit’ Fans Complain Of Dizziness & Nausea ] “It’s so exciting. Tonight was great because the Ziegfeld Theatre is where The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers opened,” Serkis told ML at the after-party at Guastavino’s, a venue beneath the Queensboro Bridge Thursday night. “It was the first time I realized that Gollum had worked as a concept and a characterization. I literally felt the audience sat forward in their seats. And I loved watching it tonight because I’m relaxed enough to watch it since I’ve seen it two times.” Not surprisingly, the movie is packed full of action, wizardry, surrealism, battles and amazing imagery. Serkis said that one time may not be enough for many fans since there “is too much to take in,” but Lord of the Rings adherents should be pleased. [ Related: ‘The Hobbit’ 3-D Early Review: Back Again, But Not Quite There ] The Hobbit also gave Serkis an opportunity to look at his character Gollum anew since the latest trio of films, set before The Lord of the Rings , gave Serkis the chance to re-introduce the Hobbit. “I have to really forget a lot of The Lord of the Rings because during that time, Gollum is driven by revenge because he’s crazed and depleted with the ring being away from him so physically he’s more wrecked,” said Serkis. “This is 60 years before and of course he doesn’t know he’s lost the ring…I’ve seen so many impersonations of Gollum that I’ve had to grab hold of him and make him mine again.” [ Related: ‘The Hobbit’ At 48 FPS: A High Frame Rate Fiasco? ] Serkis chatted with party-goers in the cavernous venue. Non- Hobbit invitees included Ben Affleck, Patrick Stewart and Terry O’Quinn, and Hobbit -inspired imagery was kept to a minimum save for the feast of food and drink that would satisfy many a dwarf. Given the recent media attention, it’s not surprising the 48 frames per second issue arose during casual chatter at the post-screening event, though an unscientific poll by people ML ran into gave the experience a thumbs up. Serkis spoke well of the visuals saying the effects combined with 3-D brought on an “immersive experience” that combined live action footage with the film’s expansive tech-generated material. “The trolls, the goblin king, Gollum, they all feel like they’re living in the same time frame and space as the live-action characters and you can’t deny that those two beings are in the same space and there’s something about 24 frames that draws a veil between the two worlds.” Watch the 13-minute The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey featurette below: Watch the video on YouTube. [ Top Image: Hobbit filmmakers and cast at the Ziegfeld in New York, credit: Getty Images ]
We at Movieline HQ were quick to cheer when Matthew McConaughey was named Best Supporting Actor by the New York Film Critics Circle for his work in Magic Mike and Bernie . After busying himself with forgettable rom-coms, the uncannily likable Texan has been on a tear, choosing unique projects in which he can strut his unique and undeniable talents. For the first time in his career, he is a genuine contender for an Oscar nomination. Movieline spoke to the man from the set of Dallas Buyers Club (the film that required him to drop tons of weight, so if the noms don’t come this year, he’ll be primed for 2014) about awards campaigns, how he’s perceived by fans, some of his classic lines and some possible film sequels. Normally we’d take laser focus in pruning our interviews, but with a guy as wonderfully laid back as McConaughey (who announces himself on the phone as “McConaughey”) you’d be a fool to ignore all the “man”s. Before we get to this terrific year, I should let you know I’m on the road and actually in your hometown of Austin and, no joke, in the shadow of a Moon Tower . Where it all began! Great shadow to be in, man. In Texas, that’s the place to be to hang out with your buds and get on a buzz. You gotta get rural on it. Okay, since we’re talking about Dazed and Confused , I mean, you’ve embraced that role — you named your company after a line from it, right? Yeah! On the football field when Randall “Pink” Floyd is deciding whether to play football or take a drug test and I say “you gotta just keep living.” That was my first film, and a week into it my father passed away. I was dealing with my Dad’s death, man. I was trying to figure out how to keep my spiritual relationship with my father. The line came to me. I didn’t make it up, but it really helped me deal with the grieving period. When we got into the scene it just came out. From that day on I kept “just keep living” and applied it — because you can apply it to anything! It’s a choice. Which choice has the most residuals? Which choice has the most delayed gratification? It’s the “just keep living” choice. It works down the road — it works for deciding what you are gonna’ have for a meal or how you are gonna’ treat yourself or how you’re gonna’ treat your woman. So I named my company that, and a record company and bumper stickers – I basically branded it on most things I have. It’s clear to me that you are too cool to give a shit about awards. [Laughs] I love it. You can’t measure art, it’s silly, but… Okay, I’m glad you are going with the “but,” because if there is such a thing as being too cool to give a shit about an award like [the New York Film Critics Circle] then I’m not nearly as cool as you think. It’s very exciting. Any artist wants to create something that translates, resonates and has a long shelf life. Something people will see, get entertainment from. We were talking about Dazed and Confused , the greatest compliment I get is when people come to me and say, “I know that guy, man! I know him!” He’s a character that lives on. People say, “I knew him, his name was Kelly Hernsberg!” So, with Dallas from Magic Mike and also Bernie and Killer Joe , these are characters that, if I can share them in a way that people recognize them and they stick — that is very exciting to me. Now, look: as far as awards for art goes, with a hundred yard dash, there’s a clear winner and there’s second and third. It’s a science. It’s not a science when you are judging art but we’d be remiss to say you can’t look at something and say this is more well done than that. I think we have the right, if you are equipped to do so and you are being honest, to judge things, and in that respect I am very honored about getting an award. So you are ready to dive in, then, and start shaking hands and going into campaign mode with the goal of an Oscar nomination for Magic Mike ? [whistles.] Well, this is brand new for me, I’ll tell ya that. I asked myself that question when this was proposed to me just a few weeks ago. My publicist said, look, you are getting some attention for Magic Mike and Warner Bros. is ready to roll a campaign. Do you want to support it, too? And I’m working right now and I think “jeez, how’m I gonna’ do that?” But this is one of those “j.k. living” questions. Engage or not engage? And I’m for engaging in some form of everything. Yes. I love the film. I love the character. I loved the process of making it. Yes. I’d love to go talk about it. I’d much rather talk about acting in the role rather than selling the movie, you know what I mean? The movie was already a hit, now you can celebrate it. Exactly. It’s a hell of a lot more fun than sitting at the junket and answering questions about the wardrobe or how it was to kiss so-and-so in a movie, right? The hard part is the compartmentalization. I’ve got the films going and I’ve got a family going, but I’m not afraid to engage. This movie I’m doing now is extreme, but we found a spot to talk. You and I were going to talk the other day, we couldn’t fit it in, so I’m talking to you now, but if we didn’t talk now, I wouldn’t be in the right space to talk after starting the day, so we worked on it and got a time. I can talk with you in the morning, then I can shut that door and get back to the role, you know? This is turning into a very meta conversation. I love that, man, meta dialogue. People say don’t talk to yourself, well bullshit. I talk to myself all the time. Just make sure you answer. There was some chatter about a Magic Mike sequel. Would you be on board if your character was fit in? You said it. If there’s integrity in the script for the character, then yes. I’d love to put those leathers on again. If it’s written well, absolutely. Have there been other films you’ve done you wish there was a sequel for? Dazed and Confused: Where Are They Now? . Rick [Linklater] and I have talked about it. It’s really fun to talk to Rick and think what Wooderson would be doing now. Nothing’s solidified, but it is fun to think about. I say he’s got a couple of kids and he’s a local DJ. The midnight to six DJ. With a couple of kids at home, probably twins. Why twins? I dunno. But he’s got twins and a wife and he’s THE SAME GUY. Rick is not afraid to do a sequel when no one expects it. He’s got the next Before Sunrise at Sundance this year. I know it. He snuck off and did it, man. One day I was talking to him and the next day I called him and he was gone. I don’t hear from him for three months he calls back, “what’s up?” I say, “hey, man, where’ve you been?” and he says he was in Greece shooting. That’s how Rick rolls. But listen, the Dazed and Confused characters are very sacred, it’s gotta’ be done right. You are aware that if you mention the name Matthew McConaughey to many people and the first thing out of their mouths will be “all right, all right, all right,” right? “All right, all right, all right.” You know the story about that, right? It’s classic. I go to the set for a wardrobe test, I’m not supposed to work that night. I wasn’t written in the script, but Rick wonders if Wooderson might be riding around trying to pick up chicks this night. So I get in the car — this is my first scene ever on film — and I’m nervous. So I’m saying to myself “who is my man? who is my man?” I had been listening to a live album by The Doors and between songs he would bark at the crowd “all right! all right! all right! all right!” Four times. So right before Rick calls action I’m thinking, “Who is my man? What am I about?” And I realize Wooderson is about weed, women, his car and music. Now I figure I’m high, I’m in my ’70s Chevelle, and I’m rockin’ out to Ted Nugent’s “Stranglehold.” And there’s the woman I’m gonna go get. So I hear action, and I say “all right, all right, all right.” Basically — I got three out of four, and now I’m gonna get the fourth! And that was the first thing I ever said on film. Follow Jordan Hoffman on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
All right, all right, all right. Awards season has officially gotten down in the dirt with a little bit of glorious stank. The New York Film Critics Circle , an august body despite three years of madness under Armond White’s leadership, has named Matthew McConaughey the year’s best supporting actor for his work in both Magic Mike and Bernie . With this double-gun recognition, my guess is that the group felt this was a salute to McConaughey’s leading performance in Killer Joe , and all the forced fried chicken-sucking it included, too. It’s quite a comeback. For years McConaughey served merely two purposes: appearing in dreadful rom coms like Failure to Launch and having a last name that drove copyeditors crazy. But we knew – we knew that beneath the skin of that shirtless Texan beat the heart of a courageous and unpredictable performer who could, when given a chance, deliver. I don’t know a single person who hasn’t been itching for an excuse to love this guy again. McConaughey’s turn as Dallas , the “Den Father,” I guess you could call him, of the strippers in Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike , is now a genuine contender for the Golden Globes and the Oscars . (No diss to Bernie , but Magic Mike was a bonafide box office hit, has Warner Bros. behind it and, you know, ass chaps.) Plus he’s already gotten a nomination for it and Killer Joe at the Spirit Awards in the bag. Our suggestion to M-McC: just keep livin’. The rest of the world is now hip to how awesome you can be. Of course, not everyone can recognize greatness when they see it. A sampling on Twitter shows jubilant critics (someone pass CinemaBlend’s Katey Rich some smelling salts) but more than one wiesenheimer suggests that a McConaughey win for his acting prowess is actually part of the Mayan’s countdown to extinction. What do you make of the McConaughey NYFCC win? Will he gyrate his way into the Oscar race now? Follow Jordan Hoffman on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Slick and mean and full of piss and chicken grease, Killer Joe has worse manners than its deadly, courtly antihero. But in its own way and to its own detriment, William Friedkin ’s splattery, southern gothic return to the screen seeks to amuse as well as shake and stir. What begins as a set of open provocations and genre tweaks propping up the story of a trashily blended Texas family’s encounter with an alpha hitman takes a turn through Coen and Lynch Lanes before winding up at the corner of Friedkin and Peckinpah. There a trailer ignites with violence and the tone of alternately abject and mordant depravity begins flailing like a rogue firehose. That the Smiths are low, stupid people is easily understood, but Friedkin hardly tires of reminding us. Killer Joe opens on the middle of a stormy Texas night, and the wailing and window-banging of a fuck-up named Chris ( Emile Hirsch ), who is locked out of the family’s trailer. When his stepmother Sharla (Gina Gershon) finally responds, Chris (and the audience) comes face to fat, mossy minge with her naked crotch. Chris’s complaints find no truck with his exceptionally dense, defeated dad Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), who echoes Sharla’s involuted logic about not being expecting to find her stepson on the other side of the door. It feels unpromising that what could be a funny gag gets lost in the scene-flattening commotion of idiocy, which too often gets cranked so high little else gets through. The Smiths have all kinds of boundary issues, not least when it comes to Dottie (Juno Temple), the gauzy baby doll daughter with a couple of little pink screws loose. Dottie sleepwalks, and either has crazy good hearing or crazy-girl intuition, because she cottons to Chris’s plan to kill their deadbeat mother (who remains deadbeat; we only get a brief glimpse of her corpse) from the moment he privately proposes it to Ansel. In deep to some coke dealers, Chris has word of his mother’s fifty thousand dollar life insurance payout (to Dottie) and a line on a police officer/hitman named Killer Joe Cooper ( Matthew McConaughey ). No good can come of such a scheme, of course, and no good does. Perhaps the family’s shouty moron shtick is designed to make the arrival of a glossy, black-clad sociopath feel more like a relief. McConaughey has toned down his surf bum beam (and highlights) for the role: in his bad sheriff getup he’s a cold-eyed buck with asses to stomp. Sharing a tight frame with Joe in a typical low-angle shot, Hirsch becomes a mini-pony of a man. But it’s McConaughey’s scenes with Temple that form the twisted center of the movie; they make a pair as riveting as it is unlikely. That it is not as simple as beast-meets-beast of prey is largely a credit to the actors – each exudes an unnerving charisma that enwraps the other and together they create the movie’s only dramatically persuasive atmosphere. It feels a little wrong saying that, given the terms of their relationship. When Chris and Ansel can’t cough up half of Joe’s fee in advance, he proposes taking Dottie as “a retainer.” Because the Smiths’ is a desperate world dulled into moral nihilism by poverty and other indignities, Ansel’s response to the idea of pimping his virgin daughter out to a hired killer is that it “might just do her some good.” We feel scared for Dottie, though after being soothed out of her initial upset she doesn’t seem that scared herself, which of course is really scary. The lead up to Joe’s claiming of his collateral and the chillingly erotic scene that results feels like Friedkin hitting a mesmerizing stride. Instead it forms a peak in what slackens into another, if notably performed and perverse, pulp fiction paradox: Though desperate to shock, its success depends on our desensitization. ( Killer Joe received an NC-17 rating and is perhaps the latest rival to the kink and violent degradations of 2010’s The Killer Inside Me .) Much of the film takes place in close quarters, spaces well parsed by Friedkin’s camera and imbued with a sense of confined desperation instead of plain old claustrophobia. Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy Letts adapted the script from his own play (this is Friedkin’s second Letts adaptation, after 2006’s Bug ), and as often as a dark, stage-y laugh line falls flat, Joe’s embroidered (and then fearsome) tones and Dottie’s loaded non sequiturs (including her casual mention, after things have gone miserably awry, that it might still all work out — “as long as I don’t get mad”) seem to land exactly how and where they’re meant to be. It seems likely it was the creepy sexual content and not the horrific violence that earned the MPAA’s admonishment, a bias Killer Joe seems to repeat in moving from its glimpses of genuine human darkness toward the more generic drawing of bright red blood. Killer Joe is in limited release Friday. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
David Dinerstein (President, LD Entertainment), William Friedkin, Matthew McConaughey, Gina Gershon, Tracy Letts, Mickey Liddell (CEO, LD Entertainment). Photo by Nick Hunt/Patrick McMullan Co. Killer Joe had a gala screening Monday night in New York with stars Matthew McConaughey and Gina Gershon on-hand along with Oscar-winning director William Friedkin who had some choice words about gun violence, the law and their relationship to movies. His film, which will be released this weekend, described by its official website as a “Totally twisted deep-fried Texas redneck trailer park murder story” received an often-dreaded NC-17 by the MPAA for “graphic disturbing content involving violence and sexuality and a scene of brutality.” McConaughey and Friedkin weighed in on violence and its sources post- TDKR tragedy at the event, hosted by the Cinema Society. “Well, it’s a lot longer answer than I can give you now, but I will just say that is, one thing that we shouldn’t be saying in society when something like that happens anymore, we shouldn’t be saying ‘unbelievable,'” McConaughey told THR at the event. “It happens, and we don’t know the answer to it right now, but there’s definitely, people now more than ever, people can make a very murky line between reality and illusion.” Continuing he added, “They can make a very murky line between the games that are played and civilization, without any thought of consequences at times…” But Friedkin gave a more emphatic response to the violence that took place at the final installment in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, saying the Joker references made by the accused gunman James Holmes was simply an act. “He was not insane. He premeditated that. He bought 6000 rounds of ammunition, he was eligible to buy guns and ammo, he set it up, he booby trapped his room…” Violence, insanity pleas and societal ills aside, the event, which was also co-hosted by Bally and DeLeón for LD Entertainment’s Killer Joe was a typically pleasant affair. The after-party took place at nightspot No. 8 and DeLeón tequila flowed. Also attending the event were Tracy Letts who wrote the play and screenplay for the film and other brass from the movie including producers Christopher Woodrow and Molly Conners, Mickey Liddell (CEO, LD Entertainment), David Dinerstein (President, LD Entertainment). Among the other notable guests in attendance were: Mélanie Laurent, Alan Cumming, Ethan Coen, Roseanne Barr, John Stamos, Graham Nash (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young), Camila Alves, S. Epatha Merkerson, Courtney Love, Rinko Kikuchi (Babel), Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire), Isiah Whitlock (Law & Order SVU), Tony Danza, Russell Simmons, Tiki & Traci Barber, Billy Magnussen, John Cameron Mitchell, Alex Karpovsky (Girls), Stavros Niarchos, Jessica Hart, Rachel Roy, Nicole Trunfio, Dan Abrams, Debbie Bancroft, Daniel Benedict, David Zinczenko, Nicky Hilton and Cinema Society founder Andrew Saffir. Movieline will have a full interview with director William Friedkin soon. [ Source: THR , Cinema Society ] [Photo: Nick Hunt/Patrick McMullan Co., courtesy of Cinema Society]
Hot dudes and with asses in air… A few thongs and strippers galore. A party in Miami, Key West or Palm Springs? Nahh… It’s Magic Mike of course and the latest trailer shows off a bit of skin courtesy of Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matthew McConaughey — the resident hotties who will hold court in their sexiest in Steven Soderbergh’s latest film. There was a time in the not too distant past that Soderbergh said he was ” retiring ” from filmmaking, but things clearly changed and he found inspiration to continue. Good for him, since most ladies (and some gentlemen) will likely enjoy the show. By the way, there are more ass and skin scenes with Matthew McConaughey — and even a little bondage — to be had in Lee Daniels’ new film, The Paperboy , which premiered in Cannes last month . But back to Magic Mike … the story revolves around a male stripper who teaches a younger performer how to party, pick up women, and make easy money. “They also had to be able to do what we needed them to do and willing to do what we needed them to do,” Soderbergh told Indiewire back in January about making the film. “But I mean, we got really lucky. All these guys were great and have brought something specific to the movie. There’s nothing like shared potential humiliation to bond.” We can’t agree more… And what do you think of the fleshy teases? Check it out… Magic Mike hits theaters on June 29.
