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Watch the global pop sensation become a family in first official trailer for Morgan Spurlock’s documentary. By Josh Wigler Harry Styles in “One Direction 3D” Photo: Sony
The indomitable bike messenger played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Premium Rush is named Wilee, as in Wile E. Coyote, the less successful half of Looney Tunes’ eternal desert chase duo. A few minutes into the movie, however, it becomes clear he’s more like the Road Runner: Wiry and whippet thin, Wilee darts through Manhattan traffic on his fixed gear bike — chain lock wrapped around his waist — thumbing his nose at the NYPD and evading the dogged pursuit of corrupt detective Bobby Monday ( Michael Shannon ). No Chamois Ass is he. Though Wilee is introduced via a spectacular slow-motion crash set to the sunny opening strains of The Who’s “Baba O’Riley,” he carries himself through most of the film with a cartoonish sense of imperviousness that could be interpreted as a death wish even before he gets entangled with dirty cops and Chinese gangsters. A favorite trick of the film — directed by David Koepp ( Secret Window , Stir of Echoes ) from a screenplay he wrote with John Kamps— has Wilee mentally projecting different paths through tight situations until he susses out the one that doesn’t leave him smeared on the sidewalk. It’s a device that underscores the character’s precarious vulnerability as he jockeys with all of the heavy metal vehicles careening through the streets of New York. This fuels the chase sequences with excitement and a looming sense of consequence. It’s a good thing too, since the bulk of the film consists of one kind of heart-pounding pursuit or another. Premium Rush is a half-entertaining, half-exasperating movie — one that sells you on the notion of New York bike messengers as great fodder for cinema but then doesn’t know how to build a feature around them. It barely has enough forward motion to make it through its 91-minute run time and spins its wheels — pun totally intended — with sequences (like one in an impound lot) that feel like blatant filler. Premium Rush bobs and weaves stylistically using backward jumps in time to fill in plot details and cuts to a Google Maps-style city grid that establishes the locations of the characters — but ultimately there’s only so much you can do on a bike. The movie tends to get muddled and laggy when the characters hop off their two-wheelers to actually talk, because they’re not good at talking. This is the kind of film in which you constantly find yourself thinking that a particular bit of trouble could have been avoided by characters either coming clean about their problems or yelling for help when the bad guys roll their way. Wilee turns out to be a Columbia Law School grad who chooses to ride all day rather than take the bar exam because, he explains in voiceover, “I can’t work in an office.” (The crushing student loans he has to be shouldering apparently aren’t burdening his free spirit.) He’s got a fellow messenger girlfriend named Vanessa (Dania Ramirez) and a professional and romantic rival in the muscular Manny (Wolé Parks), who dares to have gears on his bike. The main action in Premium Rush takes place from around 5pm to 7pm, as Wilee heads uptown to his alma mater to pick up a package from Vanessa’s roommate Nima (Jamie Chung) that Bobby is very anxious to intercept. What’s in the package isn’t worth going into — it’s a means for the film to travel to a number of distinctly New York locations. Premium Rush depicts the city as vibrant and lived-in, from the dive bar where bike messengers gather (to watch an extremely intimate live show by the band Sleigh Bells) to a plant-lined street in the flower district, to the back-room Chinatown gambling den where wry bookies and hoods watch the impulsive Bobby dig himself a deep hole playing pai gow. Shannon has a great time chewing the scenery as the off-the-rails detective, and Gordon-Levitt continues to prove that he’s an intriguingly unconventional action hero, albeit one who comes across as a little smug in this movie. That said, he brings a sweaty substantiality to the scenes of Wilee diving through traffic against a light or hitching a ride on a cab. Like seasoned Manhattan cyclists, Gordon-Levitt rides as if his bike is an extension of his body. While the film’s pop psychologizing about Wilee’s choice of wheels would make even the most devoted of fixie fanatics roll their eyes — he doesn’t want to stop, and he can’t, because he doesn’t believe in brakes — there’s definite romance to be found here in the whirling of spokes, the communing of man and machine, and the crazy freedom of cutting through a dense urban landscape like sleek fish easily navigating the currents of a stream. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Also in Thursday morning’s round up of news briefs, Super Size Me director Morgan Spurlock scores a CNN show. For the first time, the Venice Film Festival will screen some of its films via the internet alongside their premieres. And a boxing pic is in the works for a Red Riding Hood actor. London Film Festival to Open with Tim Burton’s Frankenweenie The 56th BFI London Film Festival will open October 10th with Burton’s latest. The European premiere of Frankenweenie , taking place at the Odeon Leicester Square, will screen at 30 screens across the U.K. The festival will also host The Art of Frankenweenie Exhibition from October 17 – 21. Tim Burton, Winona Ryder, Martin Short, Catherine O’Hara, Martin Landau, Producer Allison Abbate and Executive Producer Don Hahn are expected to attend the festival. Around the ‘net… Tony Scott Memoria to Take Place this Weekend A private memorial for the British-born filmmaker who died from an apparent suicide last weekend will take place this weekend. A statement from the director’s spokesperson said: “Tony Scott will be honoured at a private, family-only ceremony this weekend in Los Angeles. The family will announce plans after Labor Day for a gathering to celebrate the life and work of Mr Scott. Details will be forthcoming once they are formalized,” The Guardian reports . Super Size Me Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock Joins CNN Spurlock’s Inside Man series will debut in April 2013 on the network. Along with Anthony Bourdain’s new CNN series, Spurlock’s show will take the viewer to “fascinating corners of American society,” and is expected to air Sunday evenings, Deadline reports . Venice to Screen ‘Horizons’ Films to Stream Worldwide 500 “seats” will be available to viewers via the internet to view the films in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons section. Each film in the section, which features 10 features and 13 shorts from new and young filmmakers will be available to the limited audience for $5.25 per film and available for 24 hours starting at 9pm Italian time on the day of the film’s screening, Deadline reports . Red Riding Hood Actor Eyes Boxer Pic Shiloh Fernandez will portray the five-time world champion Johnny Tapia in biopic Johnny about the five-time world champion boxer. Eddie Alcazar is directing the indie, written by Bettina Gilois, THR reports .
Gone are the days of callouses and carpenter pants. Today, men are rocking skinny jeans and moccasins as they treat themselves to spa days, having no shame in getting waxed, tweezed, manicured and/or exposed to other meticulous grooming techniques. This ongoing — and slightly horrifying — “manscaping” trend is spreading throughout America and beyond, and Morgan Spurlock (along with executive producers Ben Silverman, Will Arnett and Jason Bateman) captured it all in their world premiere Tribeca documentary, Mansome . The film highlights everything from elite beardsmen (yes, it’s a sport) to wrestlers’ full-body shaving, but mostly focuses on candid interviews with some familiar Hollywood men. Movieline caught up with director Spurlock at the film’s premiere over the weekend, chatting about everything from the ongoing “manocolypse” to the Oscar-nominee’s top five manscaping tips. When you think of the manscaping trend, who comes to mind in Hollywood? Zach Galifianakis! That’s why we called him first. How much grooming does he do? None — that’s why he was perfect. You think of someone like a David Beckham, you know; you think of somebody like that. We immediately thought of Scott Ian from Anthrax because he’s been shaving around that crazy beard his whole life, and he’s one of the first people I called. You think of like these kind of perfect-looking actors and actresses, many of which wouldn’t talk to us, simply because they didn’t want to get into it. In reference to some of those guys, do you think that kind of seal look is good for anyone? Well, it seems to be good for Seal, I don’t know — it seems to work out! I feel like if you’re going to commit yourself, like really going for it, then you might as well go for it. I’m not quite that guy. I wasn’t even talking about Seal the musician — I was talking about a seal, like the body slickness of a fully-waxed man… Oh, like when they seal it all in? No, that’s not for me. What was the most exciting part about working with this group of men? Had you ever worked with them before? I had never worked with Will or Jason; I’d never worked with any of the guys in the film. I had met a lot of them and had said that I’d love to work with them sometime. When we called Zach for the film, he jumped at the chance. He said “Absolutely — come meet me at my place in North Carolina!” And he was great. I’ve been such a fan of Judd Apatow for so long, and Paul Rudd, so to have those guys to come in was great. And the characters that we follow in the film — Jack Passion, Shawn Daivari, Ricky [Manchanda] — to have these guys open their lives to us, to let us kind of follow them through these like manscaping rituals, you gotta be a brave guy; you gotta be really courageous to kind of open yourself up like that. I think we had really cool, courageous guys who realized that we were going to make a fun, funny film. Why do you think now was the right time to make this movie? You know, we’re in the midst of a manocolypse! We gotta help figure out what we need to do to help define masculinity today! What do you think are the top five things in the manscaping world? Well, there’s a lot of waxing; a lot of hairy guys waxing is a big one. Grooming is also a big one — making sure you shave your face or cut your hair. There’s a lot of guys with big caterpillar eyebrows… Peter Gallagher? Peter Gallagher may want to take a little something to the middle of that; it’s okay to do that these days. You don’t want to have the unibrow — not so en vogue anymore. I think you don’t want to have a bunch of grimey fingernails; I don’t ever want to see a guy with big, dirty fingernails. Unless you’re like a coal miner or you’re digging a ditch somewhere and that’s your job — like “I dig ditches” or “I dig mud all day! That’s what I do.” — you can’t just go around all day with scrub in there. Do you think women are more attracted to men that manscape? I think that what attracts you initially is how you look. I think ultimately you are attracted to someone at first because of “X,” no matter what it is; there’s something about those pheromones that they’re sending out, and you want them, for whatever reason that is. And then you start to understand who they are and what they’re about, and you continue to stay attracted to them once you peel back the layers. But I do think that we are a judgmental society, and you want to be attracted to them first. But then once you start to talk to them, then you realize, “Wow, you are a completely terrible, shallow person. I don’t want to be around you anymore.” And then you realize that what really matters is all the stuff that’s in here. [Points to head] All the pretty people that I’ve gone out with aren’t the pretty people that I’ve stayed with; I’ve usually stayed with people that have much more to offer from the inside. Is that the advice that you’re going to give to your son? I’m going to tell my son, “Marry the most ugly woman that you can — she’s going to be the best to you of all time.” Read all of Movieline’s Tribeca 2012 coverage here . Alyse Whitney is a New York-based writer, currently with TVLine.com . Her work has been featured in Bon Appétit and a handful of other publications, and you can also find her on Twitter . [Top photo: WireImage]
Now here’s a biopic I can get excited about: Blaxploitation icon Pam Grier is set to see her 2010 autobiography Foxy, My Life in Three Acts , adapted for the screen with Fresh Prince of Bel-Air / Living Single TV vet Eunetta Boone to script. Grier’s story is full of sensational events — just imagine that one Richard Pryor story , reenacted — but also marks a turning point in the portrayal of strong, sexually-empowered women in Hollywood. That said, what young actresses out there can fill Grier’s foxy shoes? I’m curious to see which actresses can even resemble Grier’s legendary physique and unusual features, let alone nail that combination of toughness and vulnerability that made her B-movie heroines so intriguing. Last year Grier spoke with Movieline about her career, her formative pre-fame years, the childhood trauma that made her who she was, and the semi-accidental foray into Hollywood that launched her trailblazing career. On the roots of the fearlessness that came to mark her onscreen persona: “It comes from my personal life. It comes from me experiencing very tragic circumstances when I was six and again at 19, and again at 21, where I finally felt I had to survive, I had to live through these circumstances. That gave me confidence. I fight a little harder, I challenge people… there are things that happened to me personally that I bring to the screen. But also, I wanted to show other women that they, too, won’t lose their femininity or castrate their men by being assertive. It’s okay to be confident… if you’re right. On her first screen credit: “It’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls ! I went to the set to visit a friend; I was a starving student working six jobs, and I just kind of went with him and the next thing I know they say, ‘Hey, we need more extras!’ They said, ‘We’ll put you in a dress, and you’ll say something.’ That was my first credit. It was Russ Meyer and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls , and I wasn’t even union. I was like, ‘Well, okay.’ I had no intention of being an actor.” On her initial Hollywood aspirations: “I still haven’t been convinced. [Pauses] Just kidding! At the time I wanted to be a camera person. I didn’t feel like I was attractive enough, with the glamour you see on television and the images that were portrayed. And I was a revolutionary, I was into the Black Panthers, being independent, feeding your own, give them a pole they’ll learn how to feed themselves, and all of that. The womanly stuff was foreign to me. I came to Hollywood in a flannel shirt, Timberland boots, and Levis, with a big ‘fro in my family’s hunting jeep with no roof, no doors, no windows. They’d see me hiking up Sunset Plaza Boulevard, it’s a long winding road, because I was used to hiking in Colorado. They said, ‘No one in Los Angeles hikes! What are you, nuts?’ No, it’s just what I do. So I brought all of those differences, a different type of woman. They could dress me up, I clean up well. But that was my first credit. And I didn’t know what I was saying. I didn’t know anything of what to do.” Read the full interview here .
Morgan Spurlock’s latest documentary Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope plants a sloppy, moist kiss on the sweaty brow of geek culture’s premiere event. Where it stops short from also getting on its knees and offering a different sort of sloppy, moist service to the four-day San Diego affair is in the sight of one of the film’s subjects weeping in the audience of a panel entitled “Breaking into Comics the Marvel Way.” Comic-Con Episode IV is indulgent to a fault about everything that happens on the convention floor, but Spurlock makes the smart decision to shape the film primarily around subjects who have an economic stake in the goings-on. The doc makes sure to peek into the many different corners of the con, from the studio previews in massive Hall H to the cosplayers’ Masquerade to the toy collector sales to the portfolio reviews of would-be artists to the comic book dealers fretting over their fading profile, but the tangible goals being pursued by the main characters add a needed sense of urgency. Comic-Con may be heaven on Earth for fanboys and fangirls (“I want to die and go to Comic-Con,” insists one man), but that doesn’t mean everyone’s going to be able to make a living there. The concept of fandom gets a tough workout in Comic-Con Episode IV , which breaks up its exploration of the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con with interviews against a white backdrop with attendees both famous and not. Some of those interviewees were also involved in the making of the movie — the always charming Joss Whedon co-wrote the film, and also produced it alongside Stan Lee and Ain’t It Cool News’s Harry Knowles, ensuring its geek bona fides. While the love of all things convention-related gets directly addressed, with Seth Rogen confessing to toy collecting and Eli Roth addressing how it’s become acceptable to continue to treasure your favorite childhood franchises into adulthood, the time the film spends with subjects who are there solely as fans — James Darling, who intends to propose to his girlfriend Se Young Hang during the Q&A at the Kevin Smith panel — is actually its most grating. The codependent couple spend their entire days in Hall H, as the guy tries unsuccessfully to get a few minutes to himself to surreptitiously go pick up the ring he had made by a jeweler who’s also in attendance. (The proposal, when it does happen, is admittedly sweet.) It’s through Chuck Rozanski, the owner of Mile High Comics, that Comic-Con Episode IV gets at one of the major changes to the event, which is that its shifted away from its comic book foundations to a become a major marketing tent-pole for blockbusters and video games. Chuck’s been coming for 38 years (the comic book panel-inspired interstitial graphics designate him “The Survivor”) and has watched the crowds slowly drift away from his booth. This year, he’s brought along his prized copy of “Red Raven #1,” an incredibly rare comic that he hopes (and may need) to sell for $500,000. (“There’s three billion women on the planet and not a lot of good comics,” he explains to his protege about how romance should never come between a man and his collection.) The quiet distress with which Chuck acknowledges his initial low sales is palpable — there are downsides to having your business and your passion been one and the same. The same goes for Skip Harvey and Eric Henson, who tote portfolios of their art to different publishers hoping to be contracted for work — the two have very different expectations of what will happen, and one is pleasantly surprised while the other is heartbroken. Spurlock knows his way around a pop doc, and Comic-Con Episode IV moves limberly between subjects and areas of the convention and its history, an entertaining watch even as it feels a little unnecessary in documenting one of the year’s most photographed, liveblogged, tweeted about and videotaped cultural gatherings. It’s the urge to create that ends up proving more interesting than the one to collect or to observe — seen not just in Skip and Eric’s stories, but in the work of Holly Conrad, who with her friends has designed insanely intricate costumes based on Mass Effect 2 , hoping that the attention they’ll get will lead to paid work. They’ve constructed in their basement an animatronic head for the person dressed as the alien Urdnot Wrex that could be professional quality, and the crowd is adoringly appreciative of their efforts. It’s not until the credits are rolling that Comic-Con Episode IV touches on any real negatives of the convention, and even that’s done in the most genial way (“It’s real, the stink is real!”). While the film deserves credit for not taking the fond freak-show route of many docs about subcultures — though can Comic-Con really be seen as such anymore? — it’s really a slow softball pitch. There’s little delving into the rise of the Twilight fandom and none into the hostility they’ve faced, or into the other competitive and regressive aspects that are part of the dark side of geek culture. No, Comic-Con Episode IV is a valentine to an event and a group of people so in ascension they don’t really need it, but it’s still a pleasant thing to watch. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . 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South by Southwest was created for ‘real movie fans,’ documentarian Morgan Spurlock tells MTV News. By Kara Warner Morgan Spurlock speaks at 2011 SXSW Photo: WireImage There’s something inherently cool about Austin’s annual South by Southwest film festival. For starters, it has a fun acronym and a decidedly casual vibe, but what sets SXSW apart from the other big film fests is that it caters to actual film fans. And there’s something for everyone, from a few mainstream studio-made crowd pleasers to the genre-tastic Midnighters series to eclectic documentaries and shorts. “What I love about the film festival is it’s real movie fans,” documentarian Morgan Spurlock, a frequent attendee of SXSW (and the man behind “Super Size Me”), recently told MTV News.”It’s not filled with people from Los Angeles, not people from business side of things, it’s real local people who love movies. You get a real gauge how an audience will respond to your film at SXSW, which I really like.” “Big Easy Express” director Emmett Malloy revealed that the festival’s unique and fan-friendly vibe is a big part of the reason they wanted to premiere the film in Austin, along with the fact that they are being treated as equals with all the other big films instead of being pushed to the side in a “Music Doc” category. “When we were looking at places to premiere, there were a lot of film festivals brought up, but SXSW felt perfect,” Malloy said. “If we went to another fest, Music Docs are treated more as a niche.” “Big Easy” features folk music-friendly bands Mumford & Sons, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros and Old Crow Medicine Show as they traveled from Oakland, California, to New Orleans on an eight-day railroad tour/ musical adventure in the summer of 2011. “At SXSW, it was a place where the layers of our film work perfectly for it and the bands were excited to come. It stacked the deck because we knew they would be excited to have us as well.” Spurlock will be on hand for the screening of his “The Greatest Movie Ever Sold” and as part of the panel “Changing the Channel: The New Golden Age of TV,” where he will discuss the upcoming second season of his Hulu series “A Day in the Life.” Spurlock explained SXSW is the perfect launching pad for his show’s second season, which features an actual day in the life of people like MMA fighter Jason “Mayhem” Miller, Joel McHale and Questlove, due to the fest’s marriage of interactive and entertainment elements, coupled with the fact that online commerce continues to be a hot topic of conversation these days. “SXSW is one of those places where great things come to fruition. It’s special,” Spurlock said. “The biggest thing: I want people to know the lay of the land. I want people to know what goes into production of the show, and I want people to know what opportunities exist in this online world, to know there are places to go to produce original content.” “I’m just excited for anyone to see the film right now,” Malloy said of what he’s looking forward to most while in Austin. “It’s about a fun trip, and I wanted people to experience it in a genuine fashion,” he continued, adding that the spirit of “Big Easy” is similar to that of SXSW itself. “It’s simple. Great music and great energy.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Photos 2011 SXSW Music Festival
When the teaser trailer for Killer Elite arrived in June , it presented a wealth of ridiculous awesomeness (Jason Statham jumping out a window while attached to an interrogation chair) and even more ridiculous facial hair (Clive Owen’s villainous moustache; Robert De Niro’s Saddam Hussein beard). Both traits are still present in the new full-length trailer, as well as a host of clichéd one-liners that would even make Arnold Schwarzenegger groan with delight. Ahead, Movieline’s complete inventory of the madness.
The Toronto International Film Festival has further sweetened an already-savory crop of films for 2011 , today announcing a slate of nonfiction premieres from the likes of Werner Herzog, Nick Broomfield, Jonathan Demme, Alex Gibney, Morgan Spurlock, Frederick Wiseman and a range of others. Subjects include death row, Paul Williams, ice-hockey brutality, Comic-Con, Hurricane Katrina, Siberian models and Sarah Palin. Yes, again . Check out the festival’s full announcement below.
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