Also in Wednesday morning’s round-up of news briefs, Ray Liotta and Ashely Judd begin work on a musical family pic. Jake Gyllenhaal is joining a new project with Hugh Jackman . A new family drama is heading to U.S. theaters. And some quick highlights from Asia’s annual Busan International Film Festival. Ray Liotta, Ashley Judd, Seth Green, Joe Pantoliano Lead Cast of The Identical Set in Nashville, the film follows the path of a musical family from the Be Bop 1950s through the Glam Rock 1970s. Music video award winner Dustin Marcellino will direct the film. Film locations include Music City’s famed Grand Ole Opry House and War Memorial Auditorium. Family Weekend Heads to U.S. Theaters Starring Kristin Chenoweth, Matthew Modine and Olesya Rulin, the film follows 16-year-old Emily Smith-Dungy an incredibly motivated, overachiever, who has grown increasingly frustrated with her parents’ lack of support and guidance. Her mom, Samantha, is a career-focused, no-nonsense, high-powered business executive. Her dad, Duncan, is a happy go-lucky artist who can’t be bothered to earn a paycheck. When they miss their daughter’s big jump-roping competition, Emily hits her breaking point and takes it upon herself to restore order in the home. Arc Entertainment took rights to the film. No theatrical date has been set. Around the ‘net… Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 1st Day Advance Sales Topping Part 1 Tickets for the final Twilight installment went on sale Monday and grosses are 87% higher for the final pic, which opens November 16th. One-quarter of all tickets sold Monday were from fans buying tickets for The Twilight Saga Marathon , which allows moviegoers to see all of the films in the franchise November 15th before the release of the final feature the next day, Deadline reports . Gwyneth Paltrow Eyes Producing Musical Based on The Go-Go’s Paltrow is negotiating to collaborate on a theatrical production of the hit ’80s era band which included Belinda Carlisle, Jane Wiedlin, Charlotte Caffey, Kathy Valentine, Gina Schock and Paula Jean Brown. The L.A.-based band was behind such early-’80s hits as “Vacation,” “We Got the Beat” and “Our Lips Are Sealed.” They were the first all-female band that played their own instruments to top the Billboard charts, THR reports . Jake Gyllenhaal Boards Prisoners Gyllenhaah joins Hugh Jackman in the kidnapping thriller directed by Denis Villeneuve ( Incendies ). In the film Gyllenhaal will play hot-shot Detective Loki. Prisoners is slated for a fall 2013 release, Deadline reports . Afghan, N. Korean Films Hit Asian Film Festival The annual Busan International Film Festival will show a mix of stars promoting blockbusters as well as North Korea’s Comrade Kim Goes Flying as well as six classic Afghan films that were hidden in a wall to save them from the Taliban, A.P. reports .
Not afraid to show off his political side, Ben Affleck is giving his take on the current U.S. Presidential campaign. Hitting the road promoting his political thriller Argo , the director and star of the film compared Republican nominee to past hopefuls who did not make it to the White House. A past ardent supporter of liberal causes and a full-fledged Obama fan four years ago, Affleck only offered tepid support for the incumbent. “I think Republicans really had a chance to win,” Affleck told A.P. during an interview about Argo . And they kind of ended up with like a sort of Mike Dukakis, Al Gore, Bob Dole type – who just couldn’t get people to see him as a real person somehow. Romney just had such trouble coming off as just like the kind of person you see at the grocery store. And I truly believe that has cost him the election.” Affleck went on to add that it looks “quite unlikely” that the Republican hopeful will unseat Obama, saying “negative momentum” can at some point cause a downward spiral for a campaign. “You start making mistakes and then all your advisers tell you, ‘You’ve got to raise your arms more!’ ‘You’ve got to talk deeper.’ So people just get into becoming robotic.” Still, if Affleck shares the same enthusiasm for Obama as in the first go-around, he is clearly holding back, saying that with hindsight his opinions have changed. “”I voted for Obama last time although he got to be all things to all people then,” Affleck said. ”And now he’s got a record which makes it really different … I obviously have more complicated feelings.” Affleck has often thrown his hat in the political sphere, doing lobbying in Washington and traveling abroad for various causes. He’s also said he wouldn’t rule out a future run for an elected office in the future. And his latest film, which debuted last month at the Toronto International Film Festival has already prompted talk of possibly multiple Oscar nominations. The film recalls an international crisis that many attribute for the failed re-election bid of Jimmy Carter in 1980, ushering in the Reagan era. Directed and starring Affleck, along with Bryan Cranston, Alan Arkin and John Goodman, Argo is set as militants take over the U.S. embassy in Tehran in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution. While 52 Americans are held, six others escape and hide in the Canadian ambassador’s residence. The film recalls a plan hatched by the C.I.A. and specialist Tony Mendez (played by Affleck) to help the six to escape Iran. [ Source: Associated Press ]
RZA ‘s kung fu actioner The Man With The Iron Fists is already a must-see thanks to its pedigree (RZA co-wrote, directs and stars, Eli Roth co-wrote and produces, Quentin Tarantino “presents”), cast (Lucy Liu, Gordon Liu, Pam Grier to name a few) and stylistic influences (Shaw brothers meets Wu Tang? Yes please! ). Speaking with Movieline, RZA dropped another worlds-colliding tidbit that might blow minds when Iron Fists hits theaters November 2: Russell Crowe ‘s mysterious, dagger-twirling character Jack Knife was influenced by none other than the late rapper Ol’ Dirty Bastard. That’s right — the spirit of Ol’ Dirty Bastard, AKA ODB, AKA Dirt McGirt, AKA Big Baby Jesus, lives on within Oscar-winner Russell Crowe. “When you see the film you will see a couple of ODB references and you’ll go, ‘Okay – that’s where he got that from,'” RZA promised when he rang Movieline (look for the full interview next month). “He does an ODB move exactly like ODB would do!” In the film’s press notes, RZA explains further: “My cousin’s not here anymore, but I wanted his spirit in the film. Russell and I talked about it, and he loved the idea.” The mysterious Jack Knife, an opium-addicted soldier enamored of China named for his weapon of choice, even has a signature jaw harp audio cue reminiscent of ODB’s “Shimmy Shimmy Ya.” But the ODB-Crowe connection extended further on set as RZA pointed to the spirit of his late cousin and collaborator when filming hit a snag. “When we talked about the character one day we had a little problem that we had to figure out on the set,” RZA told Movieline. “And it seemed like we were going to have a bad day so I had to go to his trailer and tell him what was going on. To get him to feel comfortable at the time, I told him a story about ODB.” He continued: “The story was, one day ODB walked into the studio late as hell. He was so late, he’s ruined a whole day and wasted all this money. The beat is playing, he walks in, and in one take he performs “Shame On A Nigga.” He does this song in one take and if you notice in the song there’s a part where he goes, ‘Shame on a nigga who tries to run game on a —’ He doesn’t really finish the hook.” “I was like, ‘Do it over.’ He said, ‘No — that’s it. I’m keeping it. That’s what I like!’ One take . And this one take idea, I explained to Russell, is sometimes just a moment we capture. It doesn’t have to be done over and over. ‘He’s a guy that would come in and do it in one take. So I know we’re out of time, but for today you might have to go one-take, ODB-style.’ Now of course Russell’s a master anyway and he’ll do it in one take. But I think telling him that story at that time helped because we were about eight hours late and it helped us capture a lot of things in that one day that it would have taken us two days to do.” Check back for more with RZA and his directorial debut, The Man With The Iron Fists , including our full discussion of his lifelong love of kung fu, working with idol Gordon Liu, learning from the Quentin Tarantino school of cinema, and more. The Man With The Iron Fists hits theaters November 2. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
If you thought that the Beatles have been so pored over that there couldn’t possibly be anything new to see, hear or read about them, guess again. The former Fab Four’s business concern, Apple Corps has granted the BBC TV arts series Arena unseen footage of the band. Arena has cut this footage to make a short for its Arena Hotel online project with the digital-arts website The Space. Arena Hotel debuted the short exclusively on Tuesday. A spokesman for The Space says the footage was shot during the making of a documentary about the Beatles 1967 Magical Mystery Tour film and features the band on “a coach trip to a classic British fish-and-chip shop, en route to Newquay, the final destination of the tour.” You can watch it here , but also be sure to check out Movieline’s gallery of stills from the footage , along with shots of the band performing “I Am The Walrus” and “Your Mother Should Know.” (Really, she should.) Magical Mystery Tour was first broadcast by the Beeb on Boxing Day in 1967. At the time, the trippy film confused stodgy audiences and critics, but appreciation of the groundbreaking production has appreciated considerably since then. (That said, Magical Mystery Tour has been broadcast only one other time,on BBC Two in 1979.) The music to the film got a much better reception (and a Grammy nomination), although Rolling Stone magazine’s review of the album in January 1968 consisted of a single quote from John Lennon: “There are only about 100 people in the world who understand our music.” MOVIELINE GALLERY: UNSEEN ‘MAGICAL MYSTERY TOUR’ ERA PHOTOS OF THE BEATLES Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
It’s good to see Genndy Tartakovsky on the big screen. Even when he was working at Cartoon Network beginning in the 1990s, where he produced such contemporary animated classics as Dexter’s Laboratory , Powerpuff Girls and the visually stunning Samurai Jack , Tartakovsky and his team produced remarkably three-dimensional worlds — populated with fully developed characters, ageless physical humor and memorable sight gags — rendered in 2D animation. It was only a matter of time before he graduated to feature films, and on Friday, his engaging and funny directorial debut Hotel Transylvania opened in theaters in 3D. Movieline talked to Tartakovsky about the challenges of making the transition from animated TV series to feature films and his push during production to achieve a hyper-exaggerated, Mad Magazine-meet- Looney Tunes style of animation that, he says, is largely taboo among the gatekeepers of the genre. The Moscow-born Tartakovsky, whose family moved to the United States when he was 7, also talked about working with Adam Sandler, who as the voice of Dracula, gives one of his best performances in a long time, and another genius of a certain type of animation, Saturday TV Funhouse creator Robert Smigel. Finally, he talks about his influences, which aren’t limited to cartoons. Indeed, there’s more than a little The Good, The Bad And The Ugly i in Samurai Jack , which, happily, Tartakovsky says he wants to revisit via a film or miniseries. Movieline: This is your first theatrical feature. Tartakovsky : Yeah, I’ve done long-form movies for DVD, but this is my first theatrical feature. What are the challenges of making that transition from TV to feature films? One of them is the simple idea that in television, you have episode after episode, so if you mess up one, the audience usually forgives you. In features nowadays, you work all this time and put out all this effort for one weekend. If you don’t open, you’re dead. And so it’s a totally different type of pressure where you’re working so hard to tell a good story and create good characters. Usually in TV, it takes six to eight, sometimes 10 episodes, to really get going and know what the show is. There’s always that moment in TV where a show clicks. Seinfeld had it. A lot of shows go through it. But in features, you don’t have that choice. You’ve got to figure everything out. You’ve got to know what your movie is. And you’ve got to know what story you’re telling. And all of this pressure and build-up was very different for me because I was like, this is it. This is the one shot that I get at this. When it came to the monsters in Hotel Transylvania , I thought I saw and heard a lot of references to pop culture: the Universal monsters, of course, but also Count Floyd from SCTV and Young Frankenstein. Tartakovsky: Well, the main monsters are all inspired by the iconic things that we know them by. but we actually tried not to put in too many references. So, for Dracula, we tried to make him his own design, even though he probably has classic flavors of Count Chocula and other things. [Laughs] But that definitely wasn’t on purpose. If anything, we were trying to do almost a Mad Magazine type of vibe. We tried not to take ourselves too seriously. So any of the references you may have thought you saw, definitely weren’t on purpose. I first became of fan of your work watching Dexter’s Laboratory , The Powerpuff Girls and Samurai Jack on Cartoon Network. I’m also a fan of screenwriter Robert Smigel’s Saturday TV Funhouse for SNL. How did you get involved with Sandler and Smigel and that crew? When I came on, Adam was already signed on to do the voice of Dracula. I worked on the script to take the tone and other aspects in the direction I wanted them to go, and then I gave it to Adam. He really liked what I did. No matter what movie he does, Adam brings in his own guys to help write whatever character he’s portraying, and one of the guys he works with is Robert Smigel. He asked me if I wanted to work with Smigel, and I said, ‘Oh yeah, definitely. I love the stuff he’s done.” And that’s how he got involved. So this project didn’t originate with you? I came on board after it had been going through the grinder for few years. Judging from some of the bios I read about you, you grew up a pretty alienated kid. Did monsters help you deal with those feelings? The actuality is that I was really scared of scary movies. I think kids either get off on it or they don’t. I was one of those that didn’t. I like knowing things. I didn’t like that feeling of, what’s around the corner? I never went to haunted houses or anything like that. But at the same time, I liked the idea of Dracula and Frankenstein – definitely the older movies weren’t as scary as today’s are. So, I definitely watched those. But, for me, where I really liked the monsters were in comedy, like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein , or, of course, Young Frankenstein is one of my favorite movies. That was my introduction to the monsters, until I read some of the books and thought more in terms of the truer sense of them. Weirdly, I saw Hotel Transylvania knowing that you were involved but unaware that Sandler was the voice of Dracula. And I have to say, I his usual trademark vocal tics weren’t obvious. That’s hilarious. I am a real Adam Sandler fan, but, at the same time, when a celebrity voice overtakes the character, it can throw you out of the film. You know, you realize who’s doing the voice and you’re just, ‘Oh, it’s that actor playing that character.’ And so, I was really worried about it. That’s why I tried really hard to push Dracula’s expressions and his posing and to push for Adam not to do his voice. At first, I think he was really hesitant—you know comedians are really hard on each other and they’re hard on themselves. They want to make sure they don’t sound hacky, or whatever. And doing something [as iconic] as Dracula, you’re opening yourself up. But I loved the voice Adam did. We started looking at it, and for me, I wanted this to be a broad comedy. So I kept pressuring him to do it as cartoony as he could get and still be comfortable. So whenever he yelled and did those big ranges and different rhythms, the happier I was because then we could make some really fun, old-school animation like the old school — like Mel Blanc when he would do Bugs Bunny or Daffy. For the emotional stuff, he definitely came down and we have that kind of contrast. I loved the scene where Dracula is chasing the airplane that’s carrying his daughter’s boyfriend, Jonathan (Andy Samberg) and sees him watching some sort of Twilight -like movie with bare-chested pretty boys. And even though the sunlight is burning him up, Dracula has to make some sort of smart-ass comment about the state of vampire movies today. Was that your idea? That was an Adam and Smigel idea, I think. I thought you were successful getting most of the actors not to sound too much like themselves. How did you manage that? It all depended on the character. With Fran Drescher, for the Bride of Frankenstein, we really wanted it to be her voice, which is super cartoony to begin with. With Kevin we decided to do Frankenstein as really conversational, so he could be more of his voice. If we were successful, I think it had a lot to do with the visuals. They way we executed performances and stuff, you weren’t paying too much attention to the voices because they just kind of all fit. Tell me about what you were striving for in terms of the animation. We really tried to push the animation to be better than other movies, to have it’s own point of view. And, again, to support the broad comedy of it, we wanted to do a Tex Avery-, Warner Brothers-influenced type of animation. When I first started doing it, everybody was so hesitant because that’s the big taboo in feature animation.: you can’t have things too over-exaggerated. I always thought that was ridiculous because for me the best scene in animation is in Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, where you’ve got these crazy looking dwarves and Snow White’s dead and they’re super sad. They’re as unrealistic as you get. They’re ridiculous. And then they shed a tear and the audience is rapt. They’re so involved in these characters. To me, it was always ridiculous that you can’t emote if you’re doing something cartoony and exaggerated. I always argued the opposite. The more cartoony and exaggerated you are, the more range of expression you have and it will be more believable. And so, that was the whole point. Push the expressions. Push the animation. Push the posing to a much more exaggerated level. When did that silly rule get made? Look at the movies. It’s really be around since Disney. Disney started really cartoony, and then it switched. It started going more and more realistic, and eventually that look kind of stuck. And that became the law. When you have a movie like Beauty And The Beast that’s very realistic making so much money, that starts the argument that you can only do it that way. It’s just a trend that never went away. Maybe you’re about to reverse that. I’m hoping. [Laughs] The animation is all CGI? Technically, it’s the same as any Pixar, Dreamworks or big CG feature. The only thing that’s really different is that we really pushed the drawing aspect of it. We tried to get funny expressions, funny poses and that’s what really stands out. We really broke the puppet. With CGI, you have this model of a puppet in the computer, and it can only do a limited number of things. But if you push it and stretch it and pull it and break it, it can do so much more. And that’s where the Mad Magazine theory came into play. If you pause on a frame of Dracula, you get a funny expression. And that’s a really hand-drawn 2-D animated theory, where you have a funny drawing and you laugh at it. And that’s what I wanted to get more of — that the movie is drawn, not so much just posed.
First, Abe Lincoln was a vampire hunter . Now he sounds like he might have been a very early member of the Green Lantern Corps. The 16th president’s tough formative years will be explored in The Green Blade Also Rises , which will mark the directorial debut of Terrence Malick ( The Tree of Life ) protege A.J. Edwards who also wrote the screenplay. Malick will produce the film, which despite its sci-fi-sounding title, will depict the hardships that molded young Abe into the man who became one of America’s most influential presidents. Lincoln has yet to be cast, but the filmmakers announced on Friday that Wes Bentley ( The Hunger Games ) will play the president’s first teacher, and Brit Marling (Another Earth) will play Nancy, Lincoln’s biological mother. Diane Kruger ( Inglourious Basterds ) and Jason Clarke ( Public Enemies ) are also on board as Lincoln’s step-mother and father. Edwards got his start as an editorial intern on Malick’s The New World and served as the editor on his most recent film To The Wonder .
Years in the making, director Ang Lee was apparently still tweaking his ravishing Life of Pi up until the Friday morning pre-gala screening of his latest for press and industry Friday morning. The epic 3-D adaptation of the book by Yann Martel delivered a rare cinematic experience about a young Indian boy who endures a seemingly endless time at sea. Fox released visuals from the film during summer, but suppositions about what the film is about may be dashed — at least for those who have not read the book. One thing is predictable, however: Oscar night will certainly reserve some — and likely many — spots for Life of Pi , Lee will certainly be up for another Best Director nomination, and the feature will undoubtedly be up for Best Picture. The Film Society of Lincoln Center scored a coup debuting this spectacle on its opening night of the 50th New York Film Festival . Also certainly in the running for accolades this awards season is the film’s young star, Suraj Sharma, who Lee found for the title role of Pi after months of searching. He gives a stunning performance as a highly spiritual and introspective young boy who finds himself the only human survivor after his ship sinks during a violent storm. Along with him are a gaggle of animals, including an adult tiger. Previous teasers about Life of Pie suggested the young boy befriends the Bengal tiger, almost as if the audience is being set up for a human-wild beast version of Blue Lagoon . In truth, their relationship is much more complex and those looking for a fantasy story with animals and humans living together harmoniously in paradise may be disappointed — this is not a South Seas 3-D version of Chronicles of Narnia . Still, a bond is established and they do happen on a sort of paradise island, but even that takes an unusual twist. Much of the film, however, is set aboard a life raft and Sharma assumes the duty of carrying the movie emotionally and physically as he finesses his relationship with the tiger, named Richard Parker. To get Sharma ready to portray a man fighting to survive at sea, Lee had him meet American author and sailor Steven Callahan, who actually survived weeks in open water and lived to tell about it. He wrote Adrift: 76 Days Lost At Sea (1986), which was itself a New York Times best-seller “I met him on a ship and it was raining with big waves,” said Sharma at the Walter Reade Theater Friday afternoon. “I met Steve and didn’t know who he was at that point. I found out he had survived 76 days at sea. He said you don’t feel anything, most of the time you feel completely blank. So when you do feel emotions, they are very strong, very powerful moments. So I tried to [employ] that in my acting.” Initially, it was Sharma’s brother who went after the part of Pi, but he was encouraged to audition as well. The process went on for six months and he received many call backs, but then he was asked to go to what he called Bombay (Mumbai) and his emotions turned. “I I was really excited when I went there and gave a final audition,” he said. “The first time I didn’t think I did very well, and then Ang talked to me and made me breathe in particular ways that brought out emotion inside of me. And by the end of it I didn’t even feel like I was acting anymore. I was just kind of an instrument of sorts.” After reading the novel Life of Pi , Lee said he found the book “fascinating” and “mind-boggling” but didn’t think anyone in their “right mind would put up money for this,” as he recalled today. Even author Yann Martel said that while writing the story he imagined it as “very cinematic in my mind” but he didn’t think the complications the story posed would make it possible to make it into a movie. “The literature is philosophy, regardless of how cinematic it is. And it would be very, very expensive and nearly impossible to do, and how do you sell this thing? I thought the economic side and the artistic side may not ever meet,” said Lee. Fox, however, did approach Lee several years ago and turning Pi into a feature became a possibility. “Elizabeth Gabler approached me and said it had always been their dream to work with me,” said Lee. “Little by little, it started to become my destiny and my faith, so to speak.” “We knew we could never make this film without a superior ‘guiding light’ in our leader and the filmmaker that was actually going to bring it to life,” recalled Fox 2000 head Elizabeth Gabler. “When we heard that Ang was possibly interested, I went to see him. And he said,’ Why is it that a studio would make this? It’s going to be a big, huge movie…I told him that audiences are always craving something original and new and we felt that under his directorship we would have something that could be extraordinary and new to the world in so many different ways.” While Gabler kept the budget under wraps, anyone who watches the film can easily see it must have gobbled up a hefty amount of money. Without providing a lot of detail, Lee said he spent a year animating a version of the story in order to communicate to his crew what he wanted, though once production began, circumstance ruled the day and Lee had to adapt to unforeseen challenges. “Planning and improvisation took place. For a movie like this, nothing works the way you plan it, so you just have to go along. One time it took one week to get something done in my shot list. Often it took one or two days to get something done on my shot list. I have a dramatic background, so I don’t usually use storyboards. The shots were so expensive for this, so I spent a whole year before making this movie to animate it so I could talk to the team about what it should be like. So, I wouldn’t call it so much improvising as surviving.” Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Also in Friday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, newcomers Hotel Transylvania and Looper are tracking strong in the weekend box office. And two new titles are heading to theaters. Terrence Malick’s To The Wonder Headed to U.S. Theaters The film starring Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko, Rachel McAdams and Javier Bardem is the story of Marina (Kurylenko) and Neil (Affleck), who meet in France and move to Oklahoma to start a life together, where problems soon arise. While Marina makes the acquaintance of a priest and fellow exile (Bardem), who is struggling with his vocation, Neil renews a relationship with a childhood sweetheart, Jane (McAdams). Bold and lyrical, the film is a moving, gorgeously shot exploration of love in its many forms. Magnolia Pictures, which picked up U.S. rights to the Terrence Malick-directed feature, plans a 2013 theatrical release. Generation Um… Heads to U.S. and Canadian Theaters The film is set at the end of another night out sets the stage for an intimate unfolding of the relationships John, Violet and Mia have, with each other and the city around them. As the day fades into night, secrets are revealed, compromises are made, loneliness is acknowledged, laughter is cherished, lies are dispelled and disappointment is dealt with – and the unusual circumstance that binds these three late-night characters together comes into focus. Phase 4 Films which picked up U.S. and Canadian rights to the film plans a Spring 2013 release. Around the ‘net… Andrew Garfield and Marc Webb Head for Spider-Man Sequel Garfield will return as Peter Parker and Marc Webb will direct the Columbia Pictures sequel set for May 2014. Emma Stone is in talks about a possible return. The next installment will be released on 3-D, Deadline reports . Fox Searchlight Eyeing Natalie Portman for Jackie Kennedy Drama The specialty division handled Portman’s Oscar turn in Black Swan . The Noah Oppenheimer scripted drama follows the former first lady in the immediate assassination aftermath of John F. Kennedy, Deadline reports . Sony’s Hotel Transylvania Tracking Solid $30M Weekend Hotel Transylvania and newcomer Looper are off to a stung start, with the latter tracking at $18 – 20 million. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Viola Davis starrer, Won’t Back Down , however, may only cross $5 million, THR reports .
Thor actress Jaimie Alexander was sidelined after something on set of the Marvel sequel went wrong, Thor: The Dark World . “Today I sustained a pretty horrible injury,” Tweeted the erstwhile superhuman warrioress Lady Sif on Monday. “I’m lucky I’m not paralyzed. Thank you (with all of my heart) to those who’ve looked after me.” Alexander kept her Twitter following updated as she underwent treatment for the as-yet undisclosed injury. Already in recovery mode and my spirits are high. I'll be back kicking ass as Lady Sif in no time! It can only get better from here on out!— Jaimie Alexander (@JaimieAlexander) September 24, 2012 Feeling better today! Speedy recovery taking place! Off to see another specialist. A smile on my face 🙂 Thank you for all the love! XO— Jaimie Alexander (@JaimieAlexander) September 25, 2012 Received great news today! Meds are kicking in. Awesome funny nurses here at the hospital. Physio tomorrow. All good. #HappySif #Thankful — Jaimie Alexander (@JaimieAlexander) September 25, 2012 The athletic Alexander reprises her role as Thor’s fellow Asgardian Sif in the November 13 pic. She Tweeted today that she was scheduled to be discharged from the hospital. Speedy recovery! [ @JaimeAlexander via Next Movie ]
No matter how hard they try, it’s highly unlikely any actress/singer/starlet will ever come close to portraying famed Depression-era outlaw Bonnie Parker like Faye Dunaway did in Arthur Penn’s game-changing Bonnie and Clyde . But no matter! That won’t stop Miley Cyrus from being the latest to give the fantastically stylish bank robber a try , as she’s slated to do in the four-hour History Channel/Lifetime miniseries Bonnie & Clyde . Parker and her paramour Clyde Barrow have been depicted about a dozen times in TV and film dating back to 1958’s The Bonnie Parker Story , starring WB player Dorothy Provine. ( Her story, see what I did there?) Once Penn’s classic burst onto the cinescape and tommy gunned its way into film history — helped along in no small part by Dunaway, who was Oscar-nominated for her turn as Parker — no film or television property has successfully made a mark retelling the Parker-Barrow lore. But the reckless romanticism of their tale is too rich to ignore; hence, the many musical iterations of the Bonnie & Clyde mythos. Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot channeled the duo for their 1968 collaboration album Bonnie and Clyde , headlined by the titular track featuring Bardot’s sensual cooing; in Parker’s signature beret, Bardot is the vision of Bonnie Parker’s sensual French reincarnate. Many others have paid homage to this homage in turn, including actress Scarlett Johansson, who whisper-crooned her way through a 2011 cover with Gainsbourg’s son Lulu. My favorite post-Gainsbourg musical riff on the duo? Jay-Z and Beyonce’s “’03 Bonnie and Clyde,” which itself uses a sample of Tupac’s 1996 track “Me and My Girlfriend,” a song inspired by Penn’s Bonnie and Clyde film. More recently, former tween idol Hilary Duff was set to play Parker until she was dropped due to pregnancy (infamously collecting $100,000 in her pay or play deal for doing next to nothing). I think we can all agree we dodged a bullet there, although the project was recast with True Blood ‘s Lindsay Pulsipher and apparently is still happening. So now comes Miley Cyrus to breathe good girl-gone-bad life into four hours of Bonnie and Clyde . I’m sure she, like all who’ve come before, feels a deep and soulful connection to the spirit of Bonnie Parker. The question is, how much peroxide and cigars will it take for her to be able to disappear into the role? (And is a Cyrus cover of that Gainsbourg classic inevitable/unavoidable?) [via Deadline ] Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
