Mob Wives Chicago star Pia Rizza is responding to reports that naked photos of her are being shopped around … but putting them out there herself! Talk about a preemptive strike. Pia tells TMZ, which published the pics with her consent, that she took them sometime last year, while still filming Mob Wives and sent them to her boyfriend. Her goal? To get some feedback on whether she had the appropriate stuff for a potential Playboy spread (probably to get it in later that night too). The photos somehow got in the wrong hands, and Rizza says someone is trying to sell them without her permission. So now she’s taking command. She doesn’t want anyone making money off of her image if it’s not her, first off … and yeah, she’s still hoping Playboy will notice, so here you go: Gotta admire her honesty if nothing else.
The greatest relief pitcher of all-time has announced his pending retirement. Mariano Rivera, who is returning to the mound in 2013 after tearing his ACL while shagging fly balls last year, confirmed at a new conference today that he will call it quits following the upcoming season. Said Rivera, 43, this morning at the Yankees’ spring training complex, surrounded by teammates and club officials: “After this year, I will retire… I thank God I was able to play baseball so many years.” Rivera is baseball’s all-time leader in saves. He owns five World Series rings and a career ERA of 2.21.
Former “Harry Potter” starlet takes on the darkest role yet in the new Sofia Coppola film. By Kevin P. Sullivan Emma Watson in “The Bling Ring” Photo: A24
They had a very good run, but “the end is near” for George Clooney and Stacy Keibler , according to a report in Us Weekly . The couple has been together for a year-and-a-half, but their contrasts are starting to play a negative factor, an insider claims, saying the Oscar winner and former WWE Diva ” have little in common ” and explaining: “She likes to go out and have fun. She’s been feeling the age difference.” Moreover, another source adds, Clooney’s friends aren’t major fans of Keibler. It’s unclear why, but this mole can see the break-up writing on the very attractive way. “It’s a matter of time.” If that’s the case, we somehow doubt it will take either party very long to find a new suitor. Call us, Stacy.
The Denver Thong Bandit – a dude wearing a thong – has been seen running around and exposing himself in some of the city’s neighborhoods. Here is a police sketch of the alleged perp: Officials said the flashing suspect was first spotted at the end of last summer, but he’s been “quiet” for several months, only to surface again recently. Warmer weather and all probably helps. However, there have been four reports of the man exposing himself over the past two weeks, renewing concern that the Denver Thong Bandit is back. The underwear color has changed over time, officials said. Initial reports were of a man wearing a pink thong, but he has reportedly switched to black. Police are taking him seriously, too. “We’re looking for an individual who we have titled the ‘Thong Bandit,’” District 1 Commander Paul Pazen told 9NEWS. “He is fully clothed somewhere in the mouth of an alley, will disrobe down to a thong and expose himself further in front of female citizens in northwest Denver.” Denver Police are on the lookout across the city and region. If you see the DTB, call for help. Once you finish laughing.
Long before Pope Benedict XVI stepped down as the head of the sexual scandal-scarred Catholic Church, the 18th-Century novelist and dramatist Matthew G. Lewis’ was inspired to write The Monk , a gothic supernatural novel about a man of the cloth who is tempted and corrupted by (cue ominous music)…Satan! More than two centuries later, filmmaker Dominik Moll ( Lemming , With A Friend Like Harry ) has brought the cult classic to the screen starring Vincent Cassel as Brother Ambrosio, the titular Capuchin monk who is led way astray. Here’s the synopsis: Abandoned at birth at the gates of a Capuchin monastery in Madrid, Brother Ambrosio (Vincent Cassel), raised by the friars, grows up into a preacher admired far and wide for his fervor. Ambrosio is feared for his righteousness and believes he is immune from temptation – until the arrival of a mysterious apprentice undermines his convictions and leads him down a dangerous path of sin, corruption and murder. First up, is the film’s Red Band trailer which has a bit of a vampire vibe initially — the actress is Deborah Francois — and then gets all sexy and stuff. One corrupted, Ambrosio sets his wolfish eyes on the virtuous Antonia (Joséphine Japy), who, in this clip, does not seem to be interested in finding out what’s beneath the monk’s itchy cassock. Click here to view the embedded video. Why do I think this ends badly for Antonia? The Monk opens Friday, March 8 in select theaters and on VOD. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Recent gossip has been saying Miley’s boyfriend or fiance…which in and of itself was a fucking joke in the first place….has cheated on her…with first January Jones…and now Emma Watson….because I guess he’s into skinny girls who look like 14 year old boys….because it is less illegal that having sex with 14 year old boys…. Well, Miley was supposed to delete her twitter, has instead made statements like “I will only talk about my music”…cuz it’s al about the music man….cuz I guess she’s getting attacked by her fans and followers…or maybe…she’s just broken on the inside…cuz your boyfriend cheating you can cause distress and stupid behavior like writing shit about it on twitter…which will make her look like a bigger idiot than she is.. Now she’s posting pics of her with her new BF…a fat black kid who’s shirt is covered with cocaine….cuz sometimes…especially these sad times…when your joke of an engagement is in trouble…coke covered fat guys is the only answer…..at least that’s what I tell every sad girl I try to bone…sadness is the prime time for bad decision making.
This almost feels weird to stare at… I mean I guess Texan trash…even with all that Texan money has the ability to look like it just fell out of an 80s movie…with teased hair and a bad dye job…filled with corn casserole…that may be served in a mansion but where the recipe was developed back in the trailer park she grew up in… I’d say this intense kiss is just how the family does it…making me think a paternity test is in order…cuz just cuz she says it is Channing Tatum’s doesn’t mean it is….for all we know the real daddy could be her daddy…cuz if a non lesbian pregnant woman like this gets down to momma…I just can’t imagine how a cock hungry….proven by her uterus…girl gets down with daddy…. The weirdest thing in all this is just how much it is turnin’ me on…. It’s ok to love your momma…just as long as you document it for me to masturabte to it….I grew up on 70s porn…incest was kind of a recurring theme…
Sick of the Harlem Shake? And/or the Miami Heat? Boy do we have a must-see video for you then! Just when peeps were starting to declare the meme so over , LeBron James and the Miami Heat Harlem Shake video breathed new life into it last week. Deservedly so, as the Heat Shake was admittedly sweet. But for their game in Minnesota Monday, the T-Wolves produced this just for the occasion: Timberwolves Harlem Shake Pretty epic takedown right there, but Miami, as usual, had the last laugh. They won a franchise-record 15th game in a row, routing the Wolves 97-81.
Consciously evoking the structure and iconography of MGM’s classic The Wizard of Oz without attempting to rival its impact, Disney’s Oz the Great and Powerful can be enjoyed, up to a point, on its own colorful, diverting but finally rather futile terms. Offering an eye-tickling but gaudily depersonalized Land of Oz populated by younger, sexier versions of well-known characters (most incongruously the Wicked Witch of the West), this elaborate exercise in visual Baum-bast nonetheless gets some mileage out of its game performances, luscious production design and the unfettered enthusiasm director Sam Raimi brings to a thin, simplistic origin story. The smash success of Wicked , the stage tuner adapted from Gregory Maguire’s much more intricate and morally complicated Oz prequel, showed that L. Frank Baum’s richly imagined universe still holds significant interest for audiences worldwide. With its culturally resonant imagery, state-of-the-art technology and strong family appeal, Disney’s first excursion into this realm since Walter Murch’s Return to Oz nearly 30 years ago should enjoy a hefty yellow-brick load in theatrical release that will only be amplified by 3D ticket premiums and bountiful ancillary opportunities. Abundant indicators of commercial success and faultless production values aside, there’s a persistent sense of artifice here, something admittedly not lost on a story that’s very much about the power of technology and the magic inherent in a skillfully executed illusion. Yet it still rings hollow in a way that prevents full surrender, leaving the viewer with an immediate desire to revisit the still-wondrous 1939 film and, to a lesser extent, the original Baum novels credited as the inspiration for Mitchell Kapner and David Lindsay-Abaire’s screenplay. (The filmmakers had to navigate a veritable poppy field of legal issues to steer clear of copyrighted and trademarked elements from the MGM film, now owned by Warner Bros.) Although Dorothy is nowhere in sight, attentive listeners will catch a fleeting reference to her origins in the film’s exquisite prologue, which, a la The Wizard of Oz , unfolds on a windy strip of Kansas prairie. Rendered in black-and-white and framed in Academy ratio, the sequence works as a luminous standalone tribute to the wonders of old-fashioned trickery and showmanship as practiced by traveling circus magician Oscar Diggs ( James Franco ), whose vaudeville-style act is a marvel of wires, trapdoors, faux hypnosis and do-it-yourself sound effects. Oscar is a handsome rogue, a sly con artist, and an expert levitator and seducer of women, qualities that will prove at once crucial and dangerous when a twister blows his hot-air balloon off course and deposits him in the vibrant-colored Land of Oz, where no fewer than three beautiful and powerful witches wind up vying for his attention. These include the naive, emotionally susceptible Theodora (Mila Kunis); her older, colder sister, Evanora (Rachel Weisz); and their sworn nemesis, Glinda (Michelle Williams), a beauteous blonde whose motives are initially shrouded in secrecy. Crucial to these women’s competing agendas is the question of whether Oscar is the all-powerful wizard who, as prophesied, will ascend to the throne of the Emerald City and deliver Oz from evil. Disney’s marketing campaign has worked to generate some suspense over the question of who will eventually become the Wicked Witch of the West, although even modestly Oz-savvy viewers will have no trouble guessing which witch is which before the truth is revealed halfway through. Suffice it to say that the transformation is poorly motivated at best, and the unlucky girl in question, sporting not only the requisite green skin but also an eyeful of cleavage, seems a better candidate for top honors at a West Hollywood Halloween bash than for the mantle of Margaret Hamilton. Such comparisons to The Wizard of Oz are not only unavoidable but actively invited by Raimi’s film, which, within its legal restrictions, carefully mimics its 1939 forebear — from the early monochrome-to-color shift signaling that we’re not in Kansas anymore to the device of having key supporting characters pop up on both sides of the proverbial rainbow. To their credit, scribes Kapner and Lindsay-Abaire have taken pains to incorporate previously unfilmed elements from Baum’s original work. Pointedly in this version, Glinda hails from the South, not the North; the (racially diversified) Munchkins are joined by the similarly friendly but lesser-known Quadlings; and a key role is played by the fragile, all-porcelain China Girl (Joey King), who joins Oscar and his benign winged-monkey companion, Finley (voiced by Zach Braff), on their journey. Quite apart from the question of whether the picture lives up to its various inspirations, however, Oz the Great and Powerful finally falls short by dint of a too-timid imagination. In straining for an all-ages simplicity, the script comes off as merely banal, full of flat, repetitive dialogue about who’s good, who’s wicked and, most incessantly, whether Oscar is a real wizard, an opportunistic scoundrel or perhaps both. Not until the third act does the film start to jell, with a couple of arresting setpieces that neatly demonstrate how pluck, resourcefulness and an endless supply of tricks can equal, and even overcome, real magic. Raimi’s genre credentials made him as ideal a match for this production as any, and he attacks the material with palpable vigor, countering the thinness of the story with visuals that can feel by turns excessive and transporting. Gary Jones and Michael Kutsche’s lovingly detailed costumes and Robert Stromberg’s multihued sets take on an almost radioactive glow in Peter Deming’s widescreen cinematography, and the use of tracking and crane shots is inspired, the camera pulling back on occasion to observe the action at a painterly remove. This marks the first time Raimi has worked with the stereoscopic format, and he’s applied it with abundant care and precision. Bob Murawski’s editing meshes seamlessly with the 3D-lensed imagery to produce a fluid, genuinely multidimensional experience whose eye-popping effects — a swirl of fog rolling out of the frame; blossoms that turn out to be butterflies — are executed with an enchanting dexterity and playfulness. In a real sense, Oz the Great and Powerful has a certain kinship with George Lucas’ Star Wars prequels, in the way it presents a beautiful but borderline-sterile digital update of a world that was richer, purer and a lot more fun in lower-tech form. Here, too, the actors often look artificially superimposed against their CG backdrops, though the intensity of the fakery generates its own visual fascination. The indie experiments with which Franco has been recently preoccupied lend an interesting subtext to his casting as a genial humbug, and the actor fills the Wizard’s shoes, vest and top hat with slippery, ingratiating charm. Among the three witches, Kunis’ Theodora is a bit lacking in dramatic stature; Weisz’s Evanora strikes the right notes of icy ambition; and Williams, who has rarely looked more radiant onscreen, is a bewitching presence indeed, making Glinda more than just another bubblehead.
