Man Says TSA Spilled Dead Grandfather’s Ashes During Security Check SMH: An Indiana man says a TSA agent at Orlando International Airport opened a jar carrying his grandfather’s ashes and accidentally spilled about a third of them on the floor while using her finger to sift through the material, RTV6 reports. John Gross says he is asking for an apology from TSA officials and the worker over the recent incident, the Indianapolis TV station reports. RTV6 says Gross was carrying home the remains of his grandfather, Mario Mark Marcaletti, a Sicilian immigrant from central Indiana, in a tightly sealed jar marked “Human Remains.” Gross says he explained to the agent what it was, but that she opened the jar and began sifting through the ashes, eventually spilling about a third of the contents onto the floor. “She didn’t apologize,” Gross tells RTV6. “She started laughing. I was on my hands and knees picking up bone fragments. I couldn’t pick up all, everything that was lost. I mean, there was a long line behind me.” TSA procedures, the TV station notes, call for using X-ray equipment in such cases and that under “no circumstances” are human remains to be opened. Wow that is truly horrible. What’s your worst TSA experience? Source
‘While I’d be turned here directing Josh Brolin, Will Smith would be punching me in my kidneys,’ ‘MIB3’ director Barry Sonnenfeld says. By Kara Warner Will Smith in “Men in Black 3” Photo: Columbia Pictures No matter what you love most about the “Men in Black” franchise, the most compelling aspect of the sci-fi/action films — despite all their otherworldly and impressive visual effects — is the charm of their star and all-around likable actor Will Smith as Agent J. The former “Fresh Prince” is known for being a ball of excitable, positive energy on set, but according to “Men in Black 3” director Barry Sonnenfeld, sometimes that energy can get a little dangerous. “Usually, while I’d be turned here directing Josh Brolin, Will Smith would be punching me in my kidneys,” he told MTV News recently. “In fact, at the end of this movie, I went into the hospital because Will had torn my rotator cuff. On ‘Wild Wild West’ he broke my hand in five places, so Will’s gotta have his energy harnessed a little bit, at least when he’s working with me. I don’t think he ever went around punching Michael Mann [who directed Smith in 2001’s ‘Ali’], let me just say that.” We then asked Sonnenfeld if there were any repercussions for Smith with all this on-set abuse. “I told him that if he didn’t stop hitting me that I would direct ‘Men in Black 4’ and hire his son to play young Agent J,” Sonnenfeld joked. “So maybe that will make him calm down a little bit.” It should also be known that Smith’s acting skills were a little rusty when he arrived on set to begin work on “MIB 3,” which required some lighthearted finessing from Sonnenfeld and extra practice from Smith. “On the first day of photography, we filmed Will on a blue-screen stage having to jump down [from the top of the Chrysler building], and what was great about it was that he hadn’t acted in three years and was really bad,” Sonnenfeld recalled of one of his favorite moments during filming. “Luckily, we cut out the bad stuff, but that first take we did after he hadn’t acted in three years, I was sweating because he was no good. After I yelled, ‘Cut!’ Will said, ‘Baz, I can do better! I’m really terrible. I haven’t acted in three years, I’m really rusty!’ And within a day or two, it all worked out fine. But man, it was interesting. You know how they say ‘Once you learn how to ride a bicycle, you never forget?’ Well, Will forgot how to act for the first day or two. Luckily he wasn’t acting with other actors or it would have been really embarrassing.” Check out everything we’ve got on “Men in Black 3.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘Men In Black 3’
He will probably tell you that some of his best friends are black too The billionaire blowhard offered that zany explanation after critics blasted his new birther rants as race-baiting. In an address at the North Carolina State Republican Convention, Donald Trump said the outcome of this season’s “Celebrity Apprentice” shows he’s no racist. “Somebody said, ‘Oh, because I brought up the birth certificate, I’m a racist,’ ” Trump said Friday. “I said, ‘How can I be a racist? I just picked Arsenio Hall.’ ” Questions over President Obama’s birthplace appeared to be put to rest last year after he released his long-form birth certificate, which showed he was born in Hawaii. But Trump has seized on last month’s release by Breitbart.com of an Obama biography compiled nearly two decades ago as evidence of a conspiracy to conceal the President’s origins. The biography identified Obama’s birthplace as Kenya — an assertion the agent who edited it later told Yahoo News was an error. WTF!? Did this idiot just play the ultimate “Trump” Race Card?
In this special Movie Awards ‘After Hours’ clip, Clark Gregg goes from smiling to the fetal position. By Ryan J. Downey, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Clark Gregg in “The Avengers” Photo: Marvel/Disney UNIVERSAL CITY, California — “The Avengers” is now the third-highest-grossing movie in the world. Most likely everyone involved with the mammoth Marvel superhero production is feeling pretty good about all of the success, right? Well, in this special Movie Awards “After Hours” clip, our own Josh Horowitz managed to bring actor Clark Gregg down. As if getting offed as Agent Coulson wasn’t bad enough (whether he’ll return as the Vision or in some other incarnation remains to be seen), Gregg was forced to confront a collection of sobering figures Josh delivered that drew a stark contrast with all the good “Avengers” news. Sure, the Avengers” was the fastest movie to ever pass $500 million. Yes, “The Avengers” was loved by more than 90 percent of critics. It’s taken in $1.3 billion around the world. But, as Clark learned during “After Hours,” people in Portugal hate him. No, really, they do. And Uruguay? Sheesh … Whether Gregg will fulfill fan dreams by returning to the franchise as the Vision (or in some other incarnation) remains to be seen, but this “After Hours” clip certainly gave him plenty to contemplate, as you’ll see. You’d be shaken up too if you learned 70 billion people would like to see you dead. Watch as Gregg was reduced to a low whisper, stammering for the right words, a shell of the man who happily smiled at the start and even corrected our “After Hours” host about the opening weekend at first. “Two-hundred-and-seven [million] — just what I heard,” he helpfully admonished. “If we’re doing the numbers, Josh.” If fans want to support their favorite Avengers at Sunday’s 2012 MTV Movie Awards , Captain America and Thor are facing off in the Best Hero category — but they’ve got some stiff competition in the form of Harry Potter, Katniss Everdeen and “21 Jump Street” cop Jenko. Head over to MovieAwards.MTV.com to vote for your favorite flicks now! The 21st annual MTV Movie Awards air live this Sunday, June 3, at 9 p.m. ET. Related Videos MTV After Hours With Josh Horowitz
Pattinson was initially ‘curious’ about rumors he would be playing dreamy tribute Finnick Odair, before shutting them down. By Jocelyn Vena Robert Pattinson Photo: AFP With one saga over, “Twilight” star Robert Pattinson says he has no plans to join that other super-buzzy and much-loved book-to-movie franchise, “The Hunger Games.” In an interview with
It would be very easy to show up here and report that Men in Black 3 has no reason to exist, that it’s just another threequel that didn’t have to be made. The truth is a little more complicated: Men in Black 3 — which was, like its two predecessors, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld — is neither as much fun as the first picture in the series nor as totally useless as the second. It has an actual story line, one that’s quite moving in places. And it features a bit of casting that’s pure genius. Men in Black 3 is almost good enough to make you care about its existence. And yet not quite. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones return as Agents J and K respectively, and their partnership is no more harmonious than it ever was: Agent J accuses K, quite justifiably, of barely being able to communicate on any human level. Agent K responds with yet more evasiveness: He’s a man of few words who appears to be carrying a great deal of baggage beneath his eyes alone. He has secrets, dammit, things that Agent J might be better off not knowing. Which makes Agent J that much more eager for some sort of connection with his partner-slash-father-figure. Meanwhile, Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement, from Flight of the Conchords , doing his best Tim Curry imitation), a goggle-eyed alien villain whose dastardly plan was foiled years ago by Agent K — the episode also cost him an arm — escapes from prison with the goal of traveling back in time to kill Agent K before that arrest, and that arm-hacking, can happen. Simultaneously, Agent J wakes up in world where Agent K has been dead for years; he too travels back in time, to 1969, aiming to save the life of his taciturn hound dog of a partner, a guy who, as J aptly puts it, has “kind of a surly Elvis thing happening with him.” Outside of an early scene in which J and K show up at a Chinese restaurant to investigate a health-code violation that involves noodle dishes laced with alien eyeballs and such, Men in Black 3 is pretty low on the silly, clever creepie-crawlies that were the mainstay of the original. (The script is by Etan Cohen, based on the comic-book characters created by Lowell Cunningham.) And because this is a costly summer blockbuster, released in 3-D no less, its last third is cluttered with the usual manic action, which is undistinguished and unmemorable. But Men in Black 3 does have its charms, partly thanks to some first-rate second-banana players: The luminous Emma Thompson and the radiant Alice Eve play older and younger versions of the same character, and their presence helps tone down some of Will Smith’s unbearable “Love me!” rays. Jones is barely in the movie, but at least he makes an impact: It’s fascinating to look at his face, aging apace in the normal fashion — how has it gotten to the point that it’s such a wonderful thing to watch an actor grow into the face he was meant to have? But most wonderful of all is Josh Brolin as the young Agent K. It’s so easy to believe that Brolin could turn into Jones, given a couple of decades. Brolin mimics Jones’s phrasing perfectly, capturing the essence of his easy drawl, getting those Southern-fried pauses just right. His features even carry that half-worried, half-exasperated look that Jones’ Agent K has always worn so well. The plot of Men in Black 3, once you strip away the silly action and 3-D falderal, is relatively simple and straightforward, and even though, in essence, it’s not anything you haven’t seen before, it still manages to strike a semi-meaningful chord. Its effects, particularly a sequence that takes place near the very top of the Chrysler Building, atop one of those majestic art deco eagles, are reasonably impressive. But somehow, its actors end up mattering more. Is that a strength or a liability in a summer blockbuster? It ought to be the former, but these days, who can tell for sure? Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
This week marks the big screen return of Will Smith — Hollywood’s most bankable star — after a four year absence from acting, during which time the erstwhile Fresh Prince refocused his personal pursuit of happiness: namely, producing the burgeoning entertainment careers of kids Jaden and Willow Smith, while fine-tuning his own career. So where do you go when you’re already on top — or were, a few films ago? Back to the blockbuster well, if you’re Smith, whose Men in Black 3 headlines the latest step in a lifetime career plan that, he describes, began when he was just a kid himself. “I like big movies,” admitted Smith to journalists at the Men in Black 3 press day in Los Angeles, “and the adjustment I’m making in my career right now is the clarity of what we’re saying with the movie. There has to be an idea, there has to be some message or some statement, for me.” Even, say, in a threequel about aliens wreaking havoc on earth? Despite widespread reports of the chaotic Men in Black 3 production — filming without a finished script, for starters — Smith insists these essential messages are there to be found as viewers watch his Agent J traipse back in time to the 1960s to save the younger version of his partner, Agent K (played by Josh Brolin , channeling Tommy Lee Jones with uncanny aplomb). “With Men in Black 3 we connected to the destructive nature of secrets,” he explained. “That idea whether you get that or not, when you look at it or think about it, that’s what we’re displaying, and how a relationship can get repaired and go to another level through the exposure of a secret.” At the age of 43, the Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated Smith is almost twice as old as he was when he first rose to popularity on his TV show The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air . And though he’s still got those baby faced looks and an effervescent energy about him, he espouses the kind of philosophical musings of someone who’s managed to avoid the pitfalls of fame through sheer determination. “I control every interaction with every human being that I’m with,” he proclaimed. “That a person isn’t just an asshole, or a person isn’t crazy; if I’m aware, I can actually manage any situation with 98 percent of the people on Earth.” Of course, there’s the odd fan who’ll go in for one too many kisses on the red carpet — like the Ukrainian journalist at the center of last week’s widely reported Men in Black 3 premiere incident (which occurred after this interview). “There are some lunatics that you just can’t do nothing with them,” Smith said with a smile, “but for the most part you play a part in every aspect of your life going the way you want, or not going the way that you want.” That self-determining secret to success is something that Smith also says he and wife Jada Pinkett-Smith try to impart to their children, Willow and Jaden. “The idea of failure is a label,” said Smith. “It has no bearing on what actually happened. What actually happened can turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to you if you decide that it’s the best thing that ever happened to you. So for me, the big thing with my kids is you have to control how you label things, because they’re going to become what you say it is. It’s very important to me that they understand the power they have to create the lives that they want.” “Willow, for example — we were getting flack for letting Willow cut her hair,” he said. “If I teach her that I’m in charge of whether or not she can touch her hair, she’s going to replace me with some other man when she goes out in the world. Now, she can’t cut my hair! [Laughs] But that’s her hair. To me it’s more about lumping the responsibility on them for their lives, as much weight as they can hold without breaking… that’s what we try to give them until they can hold the full weight of their lives.” [To son Jaden, with whom Smith co-starred in The Pursuit of Happyness and appears in M. Night Shyamalan’s After Earth : “I tell him all the time, ‘Son, I’m going to teach you everything that I know — and if you work hard, you can be the second biggest movie star in the world.’”] This brings Smith full circle, in a way, with the roots of his own success, which he credits to soaking up the pop cultural trifecta of Star Wars , hip-hop, and TV’s Dallas as a child. “It just felt like somehow the limits got knocked off after I saw [ Star Wars ],” Smith recalled. He was 10 years-old when he first saw the sci-fi classic. “It coincided right with the time that ‘Rapper’s Delight’ came out, so it was the introduction to rap music and Star Wars in the same year. Rap music was something that only people in New York did, and it was separate and you couldn’t get it, but part of the experience of Star Wars made me think, ‘Oh, I can rap.’ My mind got expanded in a way that’s really hard to explain.” Add to that the sprawling estate that the Ewing family lived on in Dallas and Smith’s lifelong inspiration was set. “Grown people lived on the property and came to breakfast and everybody worked in the family business, and I was like, ‘I want that!’” he exclaimed. “So I’ve been like a mad scientist trying to build Dallas through Star Wars and rap music.” Men in Black 3 is in theaters Friday. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
‘It’s the first time it’s in 3-D — my ears are in 3-D for the first time,’ Smith tells MTV News. By Kara Warner Will Smith in “Men in Black 3” Photo: Columbia Pictures If you are a fan of “Men in Black” and “Men in Black 2,” then you should definitely plan on seeing the franchise’s third film, “Men in Black 3” when it hits theaters this weekend. Not only are our favorite suited-up agents J and K up to their old tricks, witty banter and all, but their third outing features an appropriately science-fiction-y element of time travel that introduces us to a young Agent K, expertly played by Josh Brolin . If those plot points don’t have you ready to buy tickets, take it from the series’ star Will Smith himself, who says you won’t want to miss seeing his ears in 3-D. “The fun of [this film] is trying to make it new but not so new that it don’t match,” Smith told MTV News recently. “We had to be able to create something that was brand-new, that stands on its own, and it’s been 10 years since the first movie, so there were a lot of things working against it. But it’s the first time it’s in 3-D — my ears are in 3-D for the first time,” he said with a laugh. “I’m very happy with it.” Smith went on to tell a story about another part of the film that made him happy: watching an alien chicken trip and fall. “With these types of movies, the set tends to take on the tone of the movie, the amount of silliness and things. You just see the most bizarre things on movies like this,” he said. “I saw a 7-foot-tall chicken trip and fall. You would never see that anywhere in the world! There was a chicken alien and she had these foot-and-a-half heels on so she was 7-foot-tall in a chicken outfit, and she trips and falls. I just thought that was fantastic.” Bring up the “favorite moments during filming” subject with director Barry Sonnenfeld and he’ll tell you a tale of his star’s acting skills being a bit rusty at the start of production. “On the first day of photography, we filmed Will on a blue-screen stage having to jump down [from the top of the Chrysler building], and what was great about it was that he hadn’t acted in three years and was really bad,” Sonnenfeld recalled. “Luckily, we cut out the bad stuff, but that first take we did after he hadn’t acted in three years, I was sweating because he was no good. After I yelled, ‘Cut!’ Will said, ‘Baz, I can do better! I’m really rusty!’ And within a day or two, it all worked out fine. But man, it was interesting. You know how they say ‘Once you learn how to ride a bicycle, you never forget?’ Well, Will forgot how to act for the first day or two. Luckily he wasn’t acting with other actors or it would have been really embarrassing.” Check out everything we’ve got on “Men in Black 3.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘Men In Black 3’
Sony has debuted a new chase scene from their upcoming sci-fi sequel Men in Black III , in which Will Smith and Josh Brolin (playing the young Tommy Lee Jones ) hop onto a pair of newfangled high-tech monocycles to chase some alien perps. But where have we seen these super-speedy circular vehicles before? Mr. Garrison, take “It” away… First, the men in black in their space-age cycles (via Yahoo ): “Do you have these in the future?” teases Brolin’s Agent K. “No,” the Fresh Prince responds. Well actually, in the year 2001 an enterprising Coloroadan named Mr. Garrison, fed up with airport security lines, invented such a contraption… Yep. Flexi-grips. The vehicle of the future! Er, or the past. Whatever. Men in Black III cycles into theaters May 25.
Talk Nerdy weighs in on the most anticipated movies of summer 2012, from Batman’s last voyage to Earth’s mightiest superhero showdown. By Josh Wigler Chris Evans as Captain America In “The Avengers” Photo: Walt Disney Studios “The Avengers” is just one week away. You know what that means: Aside from being the big payoff for years and years and years of waiting on the part of Marvel Comics fans, “Avengers” is also the opening act in what’s sure to be one of the biggest summer movie seasons in quite some time. Batman, Spider-Man, Agent J and more are back in theaters after far too long a wait, while others — David 8 , Roadblock , Alex Hopper — are showing up for the first time. It’s a crowded landscape to be sure; you’ll want to spend your hard-earned theatergoing cash wisely if you want to weed out the fantastic, can’t-miss movies from the fugly, must -miss ones. That’s why the nerds at MTV News used this week’s edition of Talk Nerdy to guide you through the upcoming blockbuster months with which movies you need to see, which ones you can skip, and which ones shouldn’t slip under your radar. Do Not Miss
