Michael is turning over in his grave as we speak. Randy Jackson Re-Ignites Battle Over Forged Will Here we go again. How long are they going to battle over this will? According to Radar Online The tension lingers between Michael Jackson‘s brother Randy and officials looking over his late brother’s estate (executors John Branca and John McClain, and overseeing attorney Howard Weitzman), with Jackson calling the trio “The Three Stooges” while appearing on a podcast over the weekend. In it, he groused to a disbarred California lawyer named Brian Oxman that he believes there’s flimflam ongoing in the disbursement of the late Thriller singer’s millions. “My family is not happy with McClain and Branca,” Randy said. “We don’t believe the will is real. We don’t support it. We’re not happy.” He peppered in a few controversial comments about tax issues with the estate (“I know something is wrong,” he said) and admitted he thinks “someone” instructed Dr. Conrad Murray to keep his brother in a medicated haze. And as is the case with the showbiz family, there seems to be a bit of infighting, as Randy admitted, “a few of my brothers and sisters, I’m not getting along with right now.” Randy was at the forefront of the controversy last summer after grandmother Katherine was infamously whisked to Arizona, causing a domino effect that led to her losing partial custody of her grandchildren Paris, Prince and Blanket. Hope they get it together. Last thing they need is another public Jackson family squabble.
Movie critics are unhappy with the current Three Stooges film because it’s terrible. But The Catholic League is displeased with the new comedy for an entirely different reason, and it’s summed up in the following photo: President Bill Donohue has issued a statement in which he’s critical of the idea that this comedy is a faithful homage to the goofy trio. “Yes, the slapstick is there, along with the groans, pokes, thumps and the like. But the TV show never mocked nuns or showed infants urinating in the face of the Stooges. The film does,” Donohue said. As seen above, Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Kate Upton portrays a nun in the movie, donning a rosary necklace along with a bikini. Larry David also takes on the role of nun… named Sister Mary-Mengele, likely after the Nazi war criminal Joseph Mengele. “This movie is not just another remake: it is a cultural marker of sociological significance, and what it says about the way we’ve changed is not encouraging,” says Donohue. A Fox rep has responded to the criticism by saying “the Stooges have proved over time, laughter is a universal medicine. The nuns that Mr. Donohue alludes to, are in fact, caring, heroic characters in the movie, albeit within the framework of a very broad comedy.” Where do you stand on this issue? Should the Catholic League be angry?
While no one is in any rush to revisit the most recent Oscar season, I’d be remiss not to point you back to our virtual roundtable of nominees for Best Foreign Language Feature — specifically, Canadian filmmaker Philippe Falardeau, whose classroom drama Monsieur Lazhar makes its way into limited release this weekend. He’s pretty awesome, having brought a lot of the most poignant and intriguing points of view of any of the generous nominees who spent their Oscar week with Movieline. To wit, when asked about his thoughts leading up to the big day: You grow up watching the Oscars like anybody else. It is something fascinating, intriguing, but you feel it doesn’t concern you personally. You watch it as a form of entertainment. As a teenager, I remember being angry at the Oscars for always choosing dramas for best films, Chariots of Fire winning instead of Raiders of the Lost Ark , for example (lol). That was many years before I knew I would be making films. But even two years ago when I started Monsieur Lazhar , the Oscar remained something very distant. I saw little connection between what I did and the Academy Awards. So how do I feel about the big day? It’s still surreal for me to be California-bound, but I find myself enjoying every moment, and I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished. I met Norman Jewison recently, and he told me: “No matter what happens, you have an Oscar nomination, and you will have it for the rest of your life. Nobody can take that away.” There’s more where that came from . Meanwhile, Monsieur Lazhar opens Friday in limited release , with more locations to come in the weeks ahead. Enjoy! Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter . [Photos: Music Box Films]
The Avengers premiered last night in Los Angeles, where luminaries, cognoscenti and unalloyed geeks took in the Marvel megaspectacle as one, big nerdy family. Afterward, with tweets permitted by Disney reps (and full reviews embargoed until the first week of May), many of those viewers took to Twitter to exhort director Joss Whedon, the nonstop action, the humor, the Hulk, and basically anything that wasn’t the ” worthless ” 3-D. Read on for a brief round-up. [ UPDATE 2:10 p.m. PDT : And starting now you can follow Jen Yamato’s Avengers press conference livetweet over at @Movieline !] Movieline’s own Jen Yamato was there, and it was Renneriffic: Avengers was big, messy, fun. More importantly there’s now nothing but Hawkeye fanfic swimming around in my head. #mmmrenner — jen yamato (@jenyamato) April 12, 2012 And what of the others, fans and press alike? ‘The Avengers’ is a big tub of popcorn heaven. A huge grin on my face throughout and much applause from the crowd too. Well done Mr. Whedon. — edgarwright (@edgarwright) April 12, 2012 So that was AMAZING. Like, double plus awesome. Thank you Joss Whedon for giving us all the #Avengers movie we deserve. #OnlyYou — Seth Green (@SethGreen) April 12, 2012 The Hulk we have been waiting for has at last arrived. #AvengersFuckYeah — Damon Lindelof (@DamonLindelof) April 12, 2012 The Avengers is pretty epic. There is probably more action in this film’s climax than all the other Marvel movie combines! — Peter Sciretta (@slashfilm) April 12, 2012 Just saw #Avengers !Holy crap!!! #HULKSMASH !!!! — JennaBusch (@JennaBusch) April 12, 2012 The Avengers – Epic. EPIC! Everyone fights everyone, but it does deliver. Marvel’s movies get better every single one. Hulk! HULK!! — Alex Billington (@firstshowing) April 12, 2012 That’ll do, Joss, that’ll do. — Devin Faraci (@devincf) April 12, 2012 …and so on and so forth. Expect the fanboy equivalent of David Denby to snap the review embargo sometime in the days ahead, no doubt. Movieline’s full review will run closer to The Avengers ‘ May 4 release date. Stay tuned! Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Bobby and Peter Farrelly’s The Three Stooges is not particularly great, though it is possibly brilliant, a picture that goes beyond homage to become its own rambunctious invention — it’s one big eye-poke, with footnotes. Maybe the world doesn’t need a meticulously observed re-creation of the Three Stooges’ artistry, a brand of cartoonishly violent slapstick that for decades horrified moms and other upstanding individuals. Or maybe the world needs it now more than ever. Either way, the Farrellys’ reimagining of the Stooges ouvre — which includes a backstory set in an orphanage run by nuns — is packed with so much affection, and pays so much attention to detail, that I think it’s possible to love The Three Stooges even if you never loved the Three Stooges. The picture is confident in its ridiculousness — any movie that puts Larry David in a nun’s habit has to be. The original Three Stooges — or, rather, the Three Stooges that those of us who grew up in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s knew from television — originated as a vaudeville act in the mid-1920s, put together as, well, stooges by comedian Ted Healy. Healy was successful in his own right at the time, but the fame of the Stooges – who, in their most popular incarnation, comprised Moe Howard, Jerome “Curly” Howard and Larry Fine — rapidly eclipsed his. The short subjects Moe, Curly and Larry made in the ’30s and ’40s — pictures with painfully punny titles like “A Plumbing We Will Go,” “Nutty But Nice” and “They Stooge to Conga” — had a thriving afterlife on television. The cacophonous anti-ballet of the Stooges — which included, but was not limited to, butts’ being kicked and skulls’ being walloped with mallets — shaped the minds of many budding filmmakers, writers and just plain layabouts. The backstory the Farrellys lay out for the Stooges here is far more colorful: As infants, they’re dropped off in a bag on an orphanage doorstep – when the nuns who run the joint unzip that bag, three naked infants with Larry, Curly and Moe hairdos peer up at them like deceptively innocent Easter chicks from Hell. Fast-forward a few years and these cherubs have become 10-year-old hellions, kids whom nobody will adopt. Fast-forward a few more years, and Moe, Larry and Curly are now grown-ups — played, respectively, by Chris Diamontoupolos, Sean Hayes and Will Sasso — who’ve stuck around the orphanage because there’s nowhere else to go. Supposedly, they earn their keep by doing odd jobs, but in reality, they’ve merely set up a tape recorder stocked with industrious woodworking sounds — meanwhile, the three of them lie conked-out nearby, piled on a bed, their snores orchestrated into a percussive snoozapalooza. Peter and Bobby Farrelly — who, with Mike Cerrone, also wrote the script — lift that particular bit wholesale from one of the old Stooges’ shorts. In fact, all of the movie’s physical gags are meticulous re-creations of standard Stoogery: Heads being conked with hammers, complete with clanging metallic sound effects; standard-issue eye-pokes; limbs being twisted and intertwined in ways that defy human anatomy. All the old chestnuts are here, rendered with such loving specificity that they merge into a kind of highly perfumed Zen garden — call it Essence du Stooge. This is physical comedy in its purest form — it’s crude as hell, but there’s precision in its crudeness, and that’s not lost on the Farrellys or their actors. All three of the leads capture the Stooge gestalt, clearly having studied every gesture, grimace and eye-roll: Diamontopoulos’s Moe, with his old-time Brooklyn honk of an accent, is suitably ornery (the Farrellys give him a backstory that, with Freudian efficiency, explains his perpetual bad temper) and Hayes’s Larry makes a sweet-tempered naïf (he reads a “Do Not Remove” sign as “Do-Nut Remover”). Of the three, though, Sasso’s Curly is spiritually closest to his forbear: His too-short pants and buttoned-tight jacket are pure Curly, and his corkscrew smile and high-pitched giggle are so perfect they go beyond mimicry. Curly was generally the most beloved of the Three Stooges, even among Stooge-hating women, and Sasso channels the idea of what made him funny and appealing, rather than just trying to imitate the thing itself. The performance is almost a nonverbal essay, a way of calling attention to the delicate skills needed to pull off such an excessively coarse result. The Farrellys have structured their movie as three shorts that connect into a narrative, involving the Stooges’ efforts to save the beleaguered orphanage that gave them their start — their hearts are in the right place, even when their noses have been dislocated. Sofia Vergara appears as a scheming bad gal; Stephen Collins plays an adoptive dad who isn’t quite what he seems. And then there are the nuns, two of whom are played by Jane Lynch and Jennifer Hudson. Hudson glows to the point of looking beatific — she’s a wowser of a sister. And Lynch looks almost too good in a wimple — if she weren’t such a terrific comic actress, you’d think she missed her calling. But it’s Larry David’s Sister Mary-Mengele who steals the show, nunwise. She berates the boys in a shrewish rasp. When the orphans join together in angelic song — the words assert that everybody is special — Sister Mary cuts them off with a foghorn “Shaddap!” She’s every former Catholic schoolkid’s nightmare in one cranky, knobby package. She’s also the kind of character at which the Farrellys excel, which suggests that even if they haven’t fully returned to form, at least they’ve returned to some form. The duo’s recent pictures have been dismal — their 2007 remake of Elaine May’s The Heartbreak Kid , in particular, showed an uncharacteristic mean-spiritedness. But at their best, the Farrellys’ stock-in-trade is balancing the coarsest, dumbest humor imaginable with a bracing affection for the weirdos and misfits of humankind. And what were the original Three Stooges, if not the ultimate weirdos and misfits, bullying and bumbling their way through the world? With The Three Stooges , the Farrellys have poured a great deal of heart into a subject many people feel they can do without: For every past-middle-aged guy in a rumpled T-shirt who professes love for the Three Stooges, there are at least three women, most likely members of book groups, who see them as the downfall of civilization. But for the Farrellys, the three Stooges are simply a product of civilization, a source of the disreputable joy and pleasure that sometimes, particularly on a really bad day, make life worth living. That’s not to say their movie is exactly a model of subtlety. Yet it’s telling that the Farrellys stage one of the movie’s more emotional moments to a spare, unvarnished recording of Charlie Rich’s “Feel Like Going Home,” a country-gospel number of transcendent power and beauty. What’s a great song like that doing in a movie like this? That’s the eternal riddle of the Farrellys, at least when they’re at their best. Even when they’re catering to our baser impulses, they find a way to appeal to our higher instincts. Sometimes even without using a mallet. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
“It sounds creepy, but basically I just enjoy looking at her face, and think about it a lot. Even when she was a child actor in Panic Room , she just always appears very, very tired. She looks like she has an old soul. There’s something about her presence on camera and how she carries herself. She’s very intriguing. A lot of times, it looks like she hasn’t slept for two days and it’s exciting to think about: ‘What were you doing? Why were you awake so long? What were you thinking about?'” Julia Vickerman’s MUCHOS KSTEW , comprised entirely of artwork inspired by Twilight ‘s Kristen Stewart , runs through April 20 at L.A.’s Meltdown Comics. [ Next Movie ]
The Farrelly Brothers’ Three Stooges flick is pratfalling into theaters Friday, so naturally stars Will Sasso, Sean Hayes, and Chris Diamantopolous bounced into the ring Monday night on WWE Raw to bring Stooge awareness to the world of wrestling. ENTV has all the choice details and footage from the historic meeting of WWE and Larry, Curly, and Moe — for which Sasso-as-Curly donned full Hulkamania gear before getting chokeslammed by Kane. ( Kane, my new hero !) Well, at least this stunt was at least marginally less painful (for me, not so much for Curly) than that ill-advised medical spoof video for Stoogesta. Actually, it’s the single most satisfying bit of Three Stooges marketing material I’ve seen so far. Agree/disagree? [via ENTV ]
The 10 years that we are told at the beginning of Wrath of the Titans have passed since Perseus (Sam Worthington) defeated the Kraken may not seem like long enough, especially when you consider that it’s only been two since the Clash of the Titans remake was released, Kraken-like, on an unsuspecting populace. It was sufficient time, anyway, for Worthington to grow out his hair, so that in Wrath of the Titans he sports a soft cap of curls to go with his peaceful life among the humans. He’s lost a wife but gained a son and another pretext to propel a franchise whose fate was sealed once Avatar ’s numbers started rolling in. That it was going to happen was certain; how it happened was of secondary concern. Greek mythology feels particularly ill-used as a framework for narrative standards this low. Wrath (and who knows the source of the titular rage, they’re just mad , OK?) uses some of the names we now know third- or fourth-hand (I’m not sure where I’d be without The Mighty Hercules , which feels like an AP Classics course by comparison) and adds a few faintly recognizable accoutrements — Zeus’s thunderbolt, Pegasus — in what plays out as a generic “save the world” plot. Demigod Perseus is being called back to the realm of the gods by his father, Zeus (Liam Neeson) to help stem the weakening of his powers caused by waning human devotion. Perseus’s jealous brother Ares (Édgar Ramírez, from Carlos ) had turned to the dark side and Hades (Ralph Fiennes) is still rotting in hell, along with his (and Zeus’s) father, Kronos, who is threatening to unleash his wrath on the world, presumably because his “voice” is indistinguishable from that of an 8-year old burping the alphabet. I’d be mad too. The set-up is put across in the strictest expositional terms. The real progression here is one of firepower — specifically the movement from fireballs that streak across the screen to fire clouds that fill the heavens and everything below. Director Jonathan Liebesman ( Battle: Los Angeles ) brings his signature frenetic pacing to the table, starting the CGI thrashings immediately and growing less and less concerned about whether the story keeps up. The animating theme — Perseus’s ambivalence about his father and his powers — is dispatched in perfunctory doses between disorienting battles with fire-breathing beasts. When he expresses doubts about helping his father, the raffish Agenor (Toby Kebbell), son of Poseidon (played, briefly, by Danny Huston), clears them up with this reply: “Yesterday I was in chains, today I’m here, trying to save the universe. Jump in.” An action/effects showcase like this one is not the place to turn for nuanced characterization, but the script (by Dan Mazeau and David Leslie Johnson, story by Greg Berlanti) seems to defy even the few opportunities it has to make us care. Even the occasional swipes at campy self-awareness (“Don’t give me the big speech,” Agenor says at a critical moment; “Eh, I wasn’t planning to,” Worthington replies) feel tossed off, rather than part of developing an actual tone. It would be a real shame, with this much money and this many effects artists, if there were not a few purely visual wows. Wrath manages exactly two, and not where you might expect. The first is in the form of Rosamund Pike, who plays Andromeda (re-cast since the previous film), warrior queen of the whatever. With her bluebird eyes and regal bearing, Pike manages to telegraph human warmth and pull off a sculpted boob plate at the same time. And it is a welcome surprise that rather than the usual stamping, earth-shuddering, many-mouthed thingies inevitably dreamed up in computer bays to terrorize heroes like this one, the most frightening is basically a giant, one-eyed dude. A showdown with a Cyclops and his pals is genuinely thrilling and proceeds with relative coherence. After that the gang finds the dotty fallen god Hephaestus (Bill Nighy), a sort of vintage arms dealer, and for a few minutes Wrath starts to cruise along like it’s actually going somewhere. That feeling is brief, and before long we’re back to a few anodyne exchanges (Neeson and Fiennes seem particularly glib, swinging their beards around in a movie they’ll never watch) between fetishized explosions. “This is where people used to come to worship the gods,” Perseus says to his franchise-extending young son (John Bell) as they pick through a temple in disarray. Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
I can picture the lightbulb that went off the day someone in marketing came up with the idea of a viral goof on a medical ad for April 13’s The Three Stooges : ‘ It’s like a disease, only moviegoers won’t want the cure !’ Actually, I’d kill for an anti-“Stoogation” remedy that’d make the Farrelly Bros.’ upcoming re-imagining seem remotely palatable. I’m hoping the entire campaign has simply misrepresented what will turn out to be the comic discovery of the year after this painfully nonsensical ad for “Stoogesta.” “Three in six billion people are afflicted by Stoogation,” begins a calmly monotone voice-over, framing “Stoogation” as a terrible condition exemplified by Larry, Curly, and Moe’s idiotic antics. To counteract this insidious disease, the ad suggests taking “Stoogesta.” But wait! “Stoogesta is not for everyone. Side effects may include impaired vision, headaches, redness of the cheeks and forehead, intestinal issues, cross-dressing, and general freak-outs…Do not take if you are pregnant or nursing.” So, wait. By this logic, we should all immunize ourselves against Stoogation by taking Stoogesta, right? But if the side effects of avoiding Stoogation then lead to Stooge-esque behavior, thus turning us into Stooges , WHAT IS THE POINT?? Are we all destined to become Stooge-like zombies who’ve given up on life? Like Sean Hayes? All these logical thought-circles have exhausted my brain juice to the point that now I’m entertaining the possibility that this Stoogesta ad is actually brilliant and not dumb, somehow. Hell, maybe I’ll go see The Three Stooges after all. Help me, someone.
The Proust Questionnaire — the renowned personal inquisition perhaps best known around these parts for concluding issues of Vanity Fair and episodes of Inside the Actors Studio — has finally found its way to the dogs. Or at least to the dog. Trust me, you’ve heard of him. None other than Uggie, the Artist wonder dog, is the subject of the questionnaire featured in the latest edition of TheWrap ‘s awards-season print edition. There’s even a question for the haters! (“How does Uggie wish to die?”) They thought of everything! I mean, I guess Proust actually thought of everything, but the Weinsteins thought of this . Take that, Blackie. [ TheWrap ]
