Mark Wahlberg jumps back into action as an ex-cop out for justice in this week’s Broken City , which sees him face off against none other than Russell Crowe as a crooked politician Crowe describes as “part Queens, and part Wall Street.” After the jump, watch as Wahlberg talks up the Allen Hughes-helmed potboiler, what brings him back to the gritty action well time and time again, and the big-screen face-off with Crowe that was 15 years in the making. Synopsis: In a broken city rife with injustice, ex-cop Billy Taggart (Mark Wahlberg) seeks redemption – and revenge – after being double-crossed and then framed by its most powerful figure, the mayor (Russell Crowe). Billy’s relentless pursuit of justice, matched only by his streetwise toughness, makes him an unstoppable force – and the mayor’s worst nightmare . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Twi-hards have turned out en masse with the finale of the franchise in theaters. But there is one last gasp of vampire devotion that fans can spend their cash on – the Blu-Ray of course. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 can now be yours. The final chapter of The Twilight Saga , will be released on Blu-ray Disc (plus Digital Copy and Ultraviolet), 2-disc DVD (plus Digital Copy and Ultraviolet), Video On Demand and Digital Download on Saturday, March 2nd, via Summit Entertainment. The Blue-Ray disc and 2-disc DVD is packed full of extra hours of bonus materials . In theaters, the feature has reached $290 million in the domestic box office and $822 million worldwide. Not surprisingly, the series is destined to become the top-selling home entertainment franchise since 2009, with over 50 million DVD and Blu-Ray copies. Overall it has sold over 116 million copies worldwide and a global box office that tops $3.3 billion, with the latest installment holding the record. Among the features that will surely give any Twi-hard their post-series fix is a seven-part making-of documentary which gives behind-the-scenes details on the making of Breaking Dawn – Part 2 with audio commentary from Bill Condon. Blu-Ray & DVD Special Features “Forever: Filming Breaking Dawn Part 2” – Seven-part “making of” documentary Chapter 1: “Rebirth” Chapter 2: “Renesmee” Chapter 3: “The Cottage” Chapter 4: “The Gathering” Chapter 5: “The Field” Chapter 6: “The Battle” Chapter 7: “Forever” “Two Movies at Once” featurette “The Forgotten” Green Day music video “Jump to” features Audio commentary with director Bill Condon (Pre-order is set for January 14th) Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Three Oscar nominees including Kirby Dick ( The Invisible War ), Malik Bendjelloul ( Searching for Sugar Man ) and David France ( How to Survive a Plague ) are among the five nominees for the Directors Guild of America’s “Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary” award. The winners will be unveiled at the 65th annual DGA Awards Dinner on February 2nd at the Ray Dolby Ballroom at Hollywood and Highland in Los Angeles. Kelsey Grammar will host the DGA Awards. “Whether shining a light on sweeping injustice or bringing us along on an intimate journey, the best documentaries challenge and enlighten us and this year’s nominees are no exception,” said DGA president Taylor Hackford in a statement. “The powerful work of these nominated directors is a true testament to the skill and significance of non-fiction storytellers.” The nominees for the 2012 Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary: Kirby Dick , The Invisible War , (First-time nomination) Rise Films, ITVS, Fork Films, Cuomo Cole Productions, Canal Plus, Chain Camera Pictures Malik Bendjelloul , Searching for Sugar Man , (First-time nomination) Sony Pictures Entertainment, Passion Pictures Production, Canfield Pictures & The Documentary Company, Red Box Films Lauren Greenfield , The Queen of Versailles , (First-time nomination) Magnolia Pictures, Evergreen Pictures, BBC Storyville, Impact Partners, Candescent Films, Plus Pictures, DR, VPRO, Queen of Versailles LLC David France , How to Survive a Plague , (First-time nomination) Public Square Films, Ford Foundation/Justfilms Impact Partners, How to Survive a Plague LLC Alison Klayman , Ai WeiWei: Never Sorry , (First-time nomination) United Expression Media, Muse Film and Television, Never Sorry LLC
Johnny Depp is still sailing toward another round in the Caribbean, but the swashbuckling will have to wait a couple years. Disney unveiled a slew of dates for a half-dozen of its anticipated titles Monday with Pirates of the Caribbean 5 anchoring July 10, 2015. [ Related: Johnny Depp Taps Keith Richards For ‘Pirates Of The Caribbean’ Return ] Depp will be on deck once again as Jack Sparrow with Jerry Bruckheimer producing from a script by Jeff Nathanson. The Pirates series has grossed over $3.7 billion worldwide. The last feature, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides took in a cool $1.043 billion globally. No director has been named for the next installment. Also headed to theaters from Disney is Maleficent , the untold story of the villain behind the 1959 classic, Sleeping Beauty , which stars Angelina Jolie in the title role as well as Sharlto Copley, Elle Fanning and Sam Riley. It is moving to a July 2, 2014 release from its March 14, 2014 original. The Muppets 2 , starring Ricky Gervais and Ty Burrell will head to theaters March 21st in 2014, while Chris Evans starrer Captain America: The Winter Soldier will open April 4, 2014. The pic directed by Anthony and Joe Russo will be available in 3-D. Also in 3-D is Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy , set for August 1, 2014 with James Gunn as director. And 1952 (3-D)m starring George Clooney is set for December 19, 2014. Keith Richards, who appeared as Captain Teague in the franchise in On Stranger Tides and 2007’s At World’s End teased last November he may head back to Pirates once again. “I spoke to Johnny a couple of weeks ago and he said, ‘Are you up for another one?’ I can leave it at that because I know no more,” Richards told BBC 6 Music last year. “But I do have the costume!”
Welcome to Movieline’s live coverage of the 70th Annual Golden Globes Awards. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler should be out any minute now, and we’ll keep you updated on the good, the bad and the ugly after the jump.
Even if we won’t be getting dino-men hybrids with guns, here’s the second-best possible news for Jurassic Park fans: Universal announced today that Jurassic Park 4 will be in theaters on June 13, 2014. In 3-D! Breaking News! Jurassic Park 4 is coming June 13, 2014! What do you hope to see in the new sequel? Follow @ JurassicPark3D ! #JP4 #JP3D — Universal Pictures (@UniversalPics) January 11, 2013 Per Deadline , Jurassic Park 4 will be shot in 3-D; Steven Spielberg is producing, although a director has yet to be named. The script is by Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver , who wrote Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the forthcoming Dawn of the Planet of the Apes , and therefore know a thing or two about making human vs. nature conflict entertaining. The news has already spawned speculation over who might get the directing gig. (J.J. Abrams and Rupert Wyatt, Forbes wild-guesses ?) Chime in with your own director wish-list and stay tuned for more Jurassic musings… Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
We’re all waiting with baited (and force-assisted) breath until 2015 to see if the cinematic return to the Star Wars galaxy will make the taste of midi-chlorians go away, but could it be that we might first see our first post- George Lucas lightsabers on the smallscreen? Comments from ABC Entertainment President Paul Lee indicate that yes, maybe, possibly, this may be the case. You might remember a few years back when Lucasfilm kept talking up a live action Star Wars series? That show, which would have been spearheaded by former Lucasfilm honcho Rick McCallum, would have been set during the 19 year period between the end of Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope . Alas, though reportedly 50 episodic scripts were created for the series, the series proved too expensive to produce, and Lucasfilm’s ownership meant too few profits for any network that might choose to fund it. The series was, eventually, quietly killed off. But speaking to Entertainment Weekly , Lee confirmed that with Disney (which owns ABC) now having secured control of the Star Wars franchise, ABC is contemplating resurrecting the concept. “We’d love to do something with Lucasfilm, we’re not sure what yet,” Lee told EW, but he stressed nothing is currently under development. “We haven’t even sat down with them. We’re going to look at [the live-action series], we’re going to look at all of them, and see what’s right. We weren’t able to discuss this with them until [the acquisition] closed and it just closed. It’s definitely going to be part of the conversation.” If ABC goes forward with a Star Wars TV show, it could be the beginning of a serious cross-branding block of programming, along with Joss Whedon’s planned S.H.I.E.L.D. series. It also might mine territory not previously covered in filmed Star Wars fiction. As EW notes, aspects of the original, aborted series were apparently recycled for the upcoming ‘adult’ themed game Star Wars 1313 , including the focus on the seedier side of life in a galaxy far, far away. It also bore a striking resemblance to the Battlestar Galactica prequel series Caprica , in that it would have been a family crime drama of sorts. (Notably, BSG reboot maestro Ron D. Moore was once attached to the series.) Obviously, we can’t possibly pretend to know what the so-far not developed show would even look like; chances are Disney is simply keeping their options open. But should they go for it, I personally hope they don’t resurrect the concept McCallum had originally planned. I’m personally burnt out on prequels, not just because George Lucas made such a mess of it, but because generally speaking the backstory is always less interesting than the stuff that it informs. We already know about everything we need to about life before Luke, Leia and Han saved the galaxy from the evil empire. I’d rather see the wishes of the fans more deliberately pandered to, and set any potential show in the aftermath of the successful rebellion. Showing how citizens from across the galaxy pick up the pieces as the Republic struggles to rebuild would not only allow for a vast diversity of stories, it would also have the benefit of being surprising. We wouldn’t lose the ability to get attached to any character because their fates are largely sealed by what we know from the current trilogy. Better still, from a business perspective, it’d be a great way to build interest in episodes 7, 8 and 9. Events of the TV show could easily provide backstory for those films without treading on any of the same ground. It would also be as ambitious as the Marvel movie universe’s carefully constructed, shared continuity, and from a nerd’s perspective, that sounds like the best thing ever, even if I’m not yet ready to forgive Star Wars for “NOOOOOOOOOO!” What about you, readers? Let us know what you’d like to see in a hypothetical Star Wars show in comments. [Source: EW ] Ross Lincoln is a LA-based freelance writer from Oklahoma with an unhealthy obsession with comics, movies, video games, ancient history, Gore Vidal, and wine. Follow Ross Lincoln on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Quentin Tarantino probably had a vastly different idea of how the months leading up to the 85th Academy Awards would transpire for him. As he began to promote Django Unchained , he no doubt expected to spend the majority of Awards Season talking about America’s legacy of slavery, about his decision to portray it as unambiguously horrific, and how the peculiar institution has historically been treated in film. That’s how this awards season started, of course. At the beginning of December, Tarantino was explaining that his goal was to make audiences feel, viscerally, the brutality of slavery. Later in the month, he was making the very excellent point that the legacy of slavery continues to this day , in the form of America’s massive prison complex and the war on drugs. ‘Django Unchained’ & The Sandy Hook Shooting Unfortunately, just 10 days before Django Unchained premiered, the massacre in Newtown, CT happened. Making matters worse, in the weeks since Sandy Hook there have been a succession of other mass shootings. (In fact, there was another school shooting Thursday, near Bakersfield, CA). As a result, all anyone is talking about is the influence of violent media on actual, real world violence, and unluckily for Tarantino, the conversation about slavery has been terminated and replaced with nearly constant demands to address the dubious notion that his violent films may contribute to that problem. Perhaps that’s why he’s beginning to lose his shit about the issue. Now generally, Tarantino’s responses to these questions have been measured; he’s made the excellent case again and again that, no, his movies are not responsible for societal violence. That’s changed somewhat since the beginning of the new year. Speaking to NPR on January 3, Tarantino got rather testy with Terry Gross , but that was nothing, compared to his low-temperature freak-out aimed at the U.K.’s Channel 4 news host, Krishnan Guru-Murthy. The Question About Violence In Movies That Shut The Interview Down “Why are you so sure there is no link between people enjoying movie violence and people enjoying real violence?,” Guru-Murthy asked, during an interview that aired last night. Tarantino’s response revealed, like nothing else, that he’s getting goddamned tired of talking about this. “I’m going to tell you why I’m so sure? You’re not asking me a question like that. I’m not biting. I refuse your question. I refuse your question,” he said. “I’m not your slave and you are not my master,” he continued. “You can’t make me dance to your tune. I’m not a monkey. I am saying I refuse.” Tarantino then added, “The reason I don’t want to talk about is because I’ve said everything I have to say about it. If anyone cares what I have to say about it, they can Google me and see 20 years of what I have to say about it.” It’s hard to blame Tarantino for being extremely annoyed with the whole thing. Hell, I’m annoyed with the whole thing. Django Unchained has been unfairly singled out for scorn despite hardly being unique in how violent it is, and one can’t help but feel that the conversation about it has changed less because of a sudden rediscovered concern about how violent his films are, but because people would so much rather talk about something that feels nebulous, like societal violence, rather than talk about something that remains, almost 150 years after being abolished, a very taboo subject. So it’s absolutely appropriate that Tarantino rejects the premise. However, this conversation is happening whether he likes it or not, especially after Django Unchained’ s five Oscar nominations. And outbursts like this are going to make him an easy target for stupid people who think Americans are so impressionable that we can’t watch a fictional depiction of violence without immediately running out to kill our neighbors. (Not to mention rather dishonest people who enjoy stirring up tabloid-levels of moral outrage just for fun.) Falling back on the dodge that he’s already said everything that must be said on the issue is just going to make media-concern trolls even more determined to play gotcha with him — especially when his angry outbursts contain terminology that, considering what Django Unchained is actually about, are rather… unfortunate. So if nothing is going to make the question go away, maybe the time has come for him to figure out a way to change the subject back to what it should be. I keep waiting for someone to ask him what I think is a far more interesting question about violence in America. America has a long history of pretending half the country didn’t start a war that killed nearly a million people just to keep their slaves, The manufacturers of our popular culture also have a history of minimizing just how bad slavery actually was for the enslaved, and of course,there’s also the country’s unwillingness to discuss the continued disenfranchisement and oppression of the descendants of those slaves. Doesn’t that, more than any film ever could, contribute to a national culture that seems terrifyingly comfortable with acts of massive public violence? Maybe, maybe not, but since no one else is asking, maybe it’s time Tarantino said it for them. It might not make the idiotic conversation stop, but it makes for a better quote than the word ‘monkey.’ Ross Lincoln is a LA-based freelance writer from Oklahoma with an unhealthy obsession with comics, movies, video games, ancient history, Gore Vidal, and wine. Follow Ross Lincoln on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Steven Soderbergh has pushed against the limits of Hollywood’s sexual mores his entire career. His debut, sex, lies, and videotape , was a study in voyeurism and sexual dysfunction. He blurred the line dividing the feature film and porn video worlds with The Girlfriend Experience , which starred adult actress Sasha Grey. His last film, Magic Mike , subverted the male gaze by turning all eyes, male and female, on the rock-hard and very hairless abs of dude-strippers. Yet even Soderbergh has had trouble financing his next and rumored-to-be-last project, Behind the Candelabra , a biopic of Liberace starring Michael Douglas as the flamboyant pianist and Matt Damon as his significantly younger live-in lover. The veteran director only wanted $5 million to make his long-delayed film, but, as he told The Wrap , “They said it was too gay. Everybody. This was after Brokeback Mountain , by the way. Which is not as funny as this movie. I was stunned. It made no sense to any of us.” Luckily for Soderbergh, HBO believed enough in the project to greenlight it. But that still leaves the question: What does “too gay” mean in the Hollywood of 2013? Sadly, it doesn’t seem too different from what it meant fifty years ago in the Hollywood of 1963: Few gay protagonists can be normal, relatable people living in a world we recognize. In the real world, gay men and women are our friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers. But in the movies, that might be “too gay.” So screenwriters have come up with a multitude of ways to make homosexuality less immediate and less “threatening.” When they are the protagonists, gay characters vanish from everyday life: by dying, by disappearing into history, by rarely having sex, by committing evil, by being more flamboyant than pink rhinestones on a drag queen’s tiara. They may be admirable, certainly sympathizable, but they still too frequently lack ordinary humanity. The supposed breakthrough film Brokeback Mountain , for instance, marginalized homosexuality by situating its characters in a faraway setting and in a culture that was on the cusp of disappearance. And it fatally asserted its heterosexuality by having straight actors play gay, so that audiences never forget that a man kissing another man is all just play-acting. Little seems to have changed since Brokeback . The majority of studio movies with a gay male protagonist since has either taken place in Mad Men days ( Milk , Howl , A Single Man ) or featured same-sex sociopaths ( I Love You Philip Morris , Bruno ). It’s no better for lesbians, who watched one of their filmic counterparts in The Kids Are All Right have sex with a man, because of course that’s exactly what the female gay experience is all about. Equally alien to the lives of average gay women is the romance Jack and Diane , which finds one of its two budding lovers turning into a werewolf. And, it bears repeating, all of the main characters in these movies are played by straight actors. Luckily for gay viewers, the indie world is brimming with movies that are “too gay” and proud of it. The last two years alone have seen critical darlings like the sweet romance Weekend , the addiction drama Keep the Lights On , and the gay adoption saga Any Day Now . Also welcome and necessary are the coming-of-age tale Pariah and the Sex and the City -style Noah’s Arc , which feature all-too-rare gay characters of color. It’s almost surprising that Soderbergh’s biopic got the “too gay” chuck, since the subject matter – a mincing narcissist with a love of glittered capes and a barely legal pool-boy dying tragically from AIDS – is brimming with the usual defenses Hollywood is always eager to employ against normal gay existence. So one has to wonder if it isn’t the flamboyance that studios found “too gay,” but Soderbergh’s refusal to turn Liberace and his partner Scott Thorson into caricatures, to “take the relationship seriously.” After all, that might be too revolutionary for Hollywood. Maybe in 2063? Inkoo Kang is a film critic and investigative journalist in Boston. She has been published in Indiewire, Boxoffice Magazine, Yahoo! Movies, Pop Matters, Screen Junkies, and MuckRock. Her great dream in life is to direct a remake of All About Eve with an all-dog cast. Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Demand a plan, Hollywood stars? A new viral video sends a very different message: Demand Celebrities Go F–k Themselves. YouTube user Mike Hunt has created a response to the PSA recorded a few weeks ago by various famous faces – from Jamie Foxx to Jason Bateman – in which celebrities urge the public to push for stricter gun control laws . Celebrities Demand a Plan: End Gun Violence Demand a Plan Parody “I was immediately struck by the irony of their entire campaign,” Hunt tells EW . “Here are a bunch of vapid Hollywood celebrities attempting to shame the public into submitting to more gun control. Their entire industry profits from a culture of violence and gun entertainment. “I was really surprised at the amount of positive responses and feedback the video has received. Hopefully a few of these ‘stars’ see it and maybe turn the microscope back on their hypocritical industry.” Watch the videos above and then vote below: Does Hunt have a point? Are celebrities hypocrities by fighting for tighter gun restrictions? Yes, look at their movies! No, there’s a difference between entertainment and real life! View Poll »
