Call it strangely eerie or a fitting send off, on the same day that former New York mayor Ed Koch died, a new documentary about him and titled simply, Koch will open in the city he lead and will be buried in. Koch, who served as NYC mayor from 1978 – 1989 over three terms, died at 2am Eastern Time from congestive heart failure, according to the New York Times. Directed by first-time filmmaker Neil Barsky, Koch offers a portrait of the combative, humorous and straight-talking mayor who also served as a Congressman before taking the city’s highest office. The film chronicles the history of NYC alongside Koch’s tenure, which began as the city faced the depths of near bankruptcy and malaise in the late ’70s. As he served in the ’80s, the city faced racial strife and the dawn of the AIDS crisis as well as homelessness and the ascendance of Wall Street wealth in the go-go ’80s. In 1987 he famously refused a permit for the New York Giants to have a ticker tape parade to celebrate their victory at Super Bowl XXI because the team had moved to the Meadowland Complex over the river in New Jersey some years prior. “If they want a parade, let them parade in front of the oil drums in Moonachie,” said Koch referring to the town near the Giants’ adopted home. Koch also left his touch on the entertainment world, even serving as judge on The People’s Court after his mayorship and even as a film critic through his we show, Mayor At the Movies , according to Deadline.com. He also appeared in dozens of films and television shows including The Muppets Take Manhattan , Sex and the City , Spin City and of course, Saturday Night Live . Zeitgeist Films will open Koch , which premiered at last October’s Hamptons International Film Festival, at the Angelika and Lincoln Plaza theaters in Manhattan this weekend. It will head to other areas of the city in the coming weeks in addition to other U.S. cities in a slow roll-out. “I spoke to him on the day of the premiere [from the hospital] and he said, ‘don’t let the applause go to your head,'” Barsky said Friday morning on local news station, New York One. “He’s the ultimate publicist for himself and the city. It’s very regrettable he couldn’t attend the premiere of what I think is an affectionate film.” Koch log line: Former Mayor Ed Koch is the quintessential New Yorker. Still ferocious, charismatic, and hilariously blunt, the now 88-year-old Koch ruled New York from 1978 to 1989—a down-and-dirty decade of grit, graffiti, near-bankruptcy and rampant crime. First-time filmmaker (and former Wall Street Journal reporter) Neil Barsky has crafted an intimate and revealing portrait of this intensely private man, his legacy as a political titan, and the town he helped transform. The tumult of his three terms included a fiercely competitive 1977 election; an infamous 1980 transit strike; the burgeoning AIDS epidemic; landmark housing renewal initiatives; and an irreparable municipal corruption scandal. Through candid interviews and rare archival footage, Koch thrillingly chronicles the personal and political toll of running the world’s most wondrous city in a time of upheaval and reinvention. [ Sources: Deadline , NYT , New York One ]
Here’s a shout-out for Naomi Watts , and I am afraid she’ll need it. She’s the sole Oscar nominee from director J.A. Bayona’s The Impossible, and that means she has a real uphill climb for a win. Watts is up against four other nominees in the Best Actress category — Jennifer Lawrence ( Silver Linings Playbook ), Jessica Chastain ( Zero Dark Thirty ), Emmanuelle Riva ( Amour) and 9-year old Quvenzhane Wallis ( Beasts Of The Southern Wild ) — whose movies have the additional momentum of a Best Picture nomination. It’s a huge disadvantage now that the Academy at large is voting, not just the actors branch. Although a big hit in Bayona’s native Spain, The Impossible — which tells the story of a family fighting to survive the catastrophic Thailand tsunami of 2004 — underperformed in its U.S. run. The movie’s mid-December opening, which took place the same week that Academy balloting began, didn’t help its Oscar chances either. That Watts made the Best Actress short list at all is a testament to her gritty, visceral performance, which she has described as the most physically challenging movie of her career. And she’d have a real shot at a statuette if Academy members actually took the time to watch the movie. (Voting begins Feb. 8 and ends Feb. 19.) The one advantage Watts does have over her fellow nominees is that she is playing a real life person: Maria Belon, a Spanish wife and mother who lived to tell the tale and has enthusiastically endorsed Watts’ performance at various events this season. Chastain’s character, Maya, is also said to be based on an actual CIA operative, but the actress claims to have never met the woman who inspired her Zero Dark Thirt y role. Although the Thailand tsunami took more than 200,000 lives, The Impossible is not about dying. Bayona and his screenwriter Sergio Sanchez have crafted a powerful, harrowing film about living and, more importantly, family. Particularly during its grueling first half, The Impossible is, at times, almost unbearable to watch as the injured and frightened Maria (Watts) and her older son Lucas ( Tom Holland ) attempt to find what’s left of civilization after being swept away and nearly killed by the tsunami. Gravely injured, Maria clings to life while her son leads them on, looking for medical attention and holding out hope that his father Henry ( Ewan McGregor ) and two younger brothers, who were separated from them by the cataclysmic event, are still alive. Once the pair finally make it to a makeshift hospital, Maria is not given much hope to survive, and Watt’s plays these scenes brilliantly, acting largely with her eyes. Meanwhile, Henry and his two other sons are desperately seeking to determine if Maria and Lucas are okay, and in one devastating scene that will resonate with any father, McGregor breaks down during a phone call home, no longer able to bear the emotional toll of what has happened to his family. It’s a sterling moment for McGregor, who should have joined Watts on the Oscar honor roll this year. He has never been more effective on screen as he is in those moments (surrounded, by the way, by many of the actual survivors of the 2004 Tsunami who were cast as extras). For those who know the true story of Maria, the decision to change the nationality of her and her family may seem jarring at first, but quickly becomes inconsequential thanks to the performances of Watts and McGregor in roles that would test the mettle of the best actors. As for the tsunami itself, it has been exquisitely re-created the old fashioned way using a water tank and models. Although it comprises only a few minutes of the film — in the beginning and in brief flashbacks near the conclusion — it is stunningly realistic and a chilling reminder of how fragile life can be. Bayona understands that the best way to accomplish this is not through special effects but through the extraordinary performances of his actors. The Impossible is impossible to shake off, and Academy members should not miss Watts’ incredible performance in this movie. Follow Pete Hammond on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Twenty-six directors devise terrible ways to die, from A to Z, in the horror anthology The ABCs of Death. And in his first foray into the horror-film world, TV animation veteran Jon Schnepp ( Metalocalypse , The Venture Bros. ) dives headfirst into chaos with “W Is For WTF,” a stoner’s fever dream that mashes zombie clowns, a mysterious chem trail, animated depravity, and Schnepp himself into the most random and, yes, WTF-inducing segment of the bunch. Movieline spoke with Schnepp about his “W Is For WTF” (behold the exclusive image above!), how he lobbied producer Ant Timpson for the slot, why he poured his own money into his ABCs of Death short, and what he learned from his time editing Adult Swim’s Space Ghost Coast To Coast at the start of his career. He also updated us with the latest on Grimm Fairy Tales , his ambitious Heavy Metal -esque animated project. (Interviews with all 26 ABCs of Death filmmakers will be available to read on The ABCs of Death Tumblr page.) Your name stands out among the two dozen mostly genre filmmakers because you come from a slightly different world. How were you approached to take part in the ABCs of Death ? I actually contacted Ant [Timpson]. I had heard of The ABCs of Death as I was working on Metalocalypse , and I’ve done a bunch of live-action television shows but they’ve mainly been comedy. After I did those I got into the world of animation, and looking for things outside of animation to do, and that one sounded really cool. I just sent a cold email saying, ‘Hey, this is Jon – I direct Metalocalypse …’ He wrote me back pretty quickly saying ‘I love your work, but we’re totally staffed up. We have all the directors. But I’ll keep you in mind for the future.’ Cut to five months later I get an email from him saying, ‘Hey – one of our directors dropped out and you’re at the top of the list. Do you want to do it?’ And I was like, ‘Fuck yeah!’ It’s nice to hear that in this town sometimes it doesn’t hurt to reach out to a stranger. I strongly advise it! I think if you do it in a cool way and you’re not weird… it comes with a caveat: It doesn’t hurt to ask people, but make sure that you can back that shit up, and also that you’re not crazy. Just how hard is it to come up with a concept like “W is for WTF” when you’re tasked with creating something with such specific yet wide open guidelines? I came up with a bunch of ideas that weren’t fully formed, like “W Is For Wake,” or “W Is For War” and as I started to write them I [realized] I wasn’t sold on them myself. I sent a ton of these ideas, the dumbest one I could possibly think of was “W Is For Werewolf.” Then somehow that devolves as people devour this chem trail and everything they’re thinking comes to life. Is that your actual production staff acting in the short? No – actually it’s the company I work at. They were cool enough to let me shoot there. And that’s my office and my friend Tommy [Blacha] who I work on Metalocalypse with. Because the budget is so minute. I ended up spending like $9,000, which sucks [each director was given a $5,000 budget], but at the same time was totally worth it because you want it to be awesome. I guess that’s what happens when you factor in all the decapitations, and eaten faces and eyeball-chewing. I come from this school of, I pay everyone I work with. I’ve never liked the idea of free anything. In choosing “WTF” as your letter W theme, you really allow yourself to go just about everywhere at once, no limitations. You’ve got zombie clowns, a laser walrus, something I might describe as a muppet… A star-muppet! Was that really just your way of not having to choose just one concept? I’m used to working in television where you whittled stuff down. It’s good practice to get to the core of a story – even if your story is about fantasy and mind meltdowns. The chaos in your short is ADD-optimized, but it really is about something – art and the creative process. This is what I imagine you going through every week working on your shows. Yeah – definitely the subtext is there. I’m glad you got that. Every single person has weird ideas in their mind. The general idea of it is that there are a lot of ideas for anything. How do you eventually execute them? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. We all die eventually. You didn’t know many of the other filmmakers beforehand, and you’re working on your own with your own budget and crew on your part of the ABCs . What was it like to see “W Is For WTF” with the 25 other shorts when the entire film was put together and polished? I’ll be honest with you, there are about seven of them that I don’t like, that I just don’t think are good. Then there are a couple I think are in the medium area, but an overwhelming bunch of them I think are incredible. The one that follows mine, “X Is For XXL” [by Xavier Gens] is horrifying and such a gut punch in so many ways. It’s just so disgusting and well done. That is pure horror. And you know what? I’m sure there are people who saw mine and hated it. “Who is this goofball and why is there animation? Why is there a dude with his dog on his face?” You just get used to that, though. At least I’ve got the body armor for that now from doing shows like Metalocalypse . There are people who are going to totally hate on you, which sucks. I used to look at the boards and you can’t defend yourself against AppleCat433, you know? Sizzler315 hates you! It’s like, what are you going to do? Still, you worked on so many beloved shows over the years. The Venture Bros. , Metalocalypse … what did you learn most from working on Space Ghost early in your career? I learned comic timing. All the editors of Space Ghost are also the directors. The guys who wrote it give you the audio takes and you would cut it together; it was like a live television show so you would already have all the angles, but then you would animate their mouths yourselves, in Avid. It was a real primitive setup. It was literally like four people working on Space Ghost – the two writers, an executive producer, and the editor, and that was it. For four to eight weeks you would edit and make the show, then you would send the edit decision list to the online guys who would take your actual edit and reassemble it. And then they would put their name on it too, which kind of sucked. But whatever. Hollywood has a lot worse injustices in credits and whatnot. But Space Ghost was a great experience for me because I got to do the weirdest, most fucked up editing and people loved it. I did a loop edit of Harland Williams triggered on some weird word he was saying, and then I put outtakes of George Lowe saying to one of the engineers, like, ‘What’s going on over there?’ And made Space Ghost leave his set, fly over to Moltar and go, ‘Moltar, is there a problem?’ I think it was 1995, I flew out to Atlanta for eight weeks. There was no Adult Swim, none of that – it was a giant aircraft hanger and they were building TBS and TNT and all that. I remember they put me with a bunch of lawyers. Before Aqua Teen Hunger Force was a show, I worked on the pilot and designed the backgrounds, back in 2000. I built Carl’s swimming pool, all that shit – it was fun to work on. We were like, ‘Yeah, we’re doing this weird thing called Aqua Teen Hunger Force .’ I was actually there when they made up ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force,’ in 1999, when they came up with the show. Originally it was a Space Ghost episode, and I was editing the last episode of Space Ghost of that year, it was called ‘ King Dead .’ That’s the one I wrote a bunch of stuff in. I made up House of the Barking Dead which is on the TV Space Ghost is watching. That was one of my contributions. They were like, ‘That’s good. You can animate that!’ You’re also moving on your animated Grimm Fairy Tales . Where’s that project at now? I just finished the color correction and the sound mix and right now we’re editing all the behind-the-scenes stuff. Our cast is incredible and it was so much fun to do. If you’ve ever seen Heavy Metal , it’s in that vein. I wanted to hire a bunch of kickass artists to do different Grimm fairy tales. I’m trying to turn it into a TV show, that’s why we did the Kickstarter. There’s tons of gore, there’s metal music, there’s nudity… I don’t even know if it will sell. We live in a different world. Everyone I’ve shown this to is like, ‘I can’t wait to see this in a series!’ But I have to get through all these other people sitting in offices who say, ‘It seems to me things that are PG-13 make money.” THE ABCs OF DEATH is now available on Cable VOD, iTunes, Amazon, Xbox Zune, Playstation Market, VUDU and Google Play; in theaters starting March 8 from Magnet Releasing. MORE ON JON SCHNEPP: What The Kal-El? The Seriously Weird Superman That Nicolas Cage Almost Played Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
She notably made her Brooklyn debut last year to much fan fair and now singing diva Barbra Streisand will make her way to the Academy Awards telecast for a return. [ Related: Norah Jones To Perform ‘Ted’ Oscar-Nominated Song At Academy Awards ] The two-time Academy Award-winner has only lent her voice to the Oscars once before back in March 28, 1977 when she sang the them song from “A Star Is Born.” Streisand won the Oscar for Best Original Song that same night for Evergreen . Streisand won her first Oscar for Best Actress in Funny Girl (1968), and was nominated again in 1973 for her lead performance in The Way We Were . She was also nominated for producing the Best Picture nominee The Prince of Tides (1991), which she also directed, and for co-writing the original song “I Finally Found Someone” from The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996). “In an evening that celebrates the artistry of movies and music,” said producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron in a statement, adding, “How could the telecast be complete without Barbra Streisand? We are honored that she has agreed to do a very special performance on this year’s Oscars, her first time singing on the show in 36 years.” The 85th Academy Awards takes place February 24th in Hollywood. Seth MacFarlane will host the live event, which will be broadcast on ABC.
Argo maintained Awards momentum Sunday night, winning the best ensemble prize at the Screen Actors Guild Awards. The feature, directed by Ben Affleck who also stars, won the top film prize at the top film prize at the Golden Globes earlier this month and Saturday night at the Producers Guild Of America, taking the group’s Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures prize for producers Affleck, George Clooney and Grant Heslov. On the television side, Downton Abbey and Modern Family took SAG’s best ensemble cast for drama and comedy. In other top film prizes, Daniel Day-Lewis , not surprisingly, continued momentum at the 19th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, taking Best Male Actor in a leading role for Lincoln , while Jennifer Lawrence won Best Female Actor in a leading role for Silver Linings Playbook . Anne Hathaway and Tommy Lee Jones won for their Supporting Roles in Les Misérables and Lincoln respectively. Also Sunday, Carl Reiner presented Dick Van Dyke with the union’s highest honor, the 49th Annual Life Achievement Award, following a filmed tribute introduced and narrated by Alec Baldwin. The complete list of the 19th annual SAG Awards follows with information provided by the Screen Actors Guild. Theatrical Motion Pictures Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role DANIEL DAY-LEWIS / Abraham Lincoln – “LINCOLN” (Touchstone Pictures) Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role JENNIFER LAWRENCE / Tiffany – “SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK” (The Weinstein Company) Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role TOMMY LEE JONES / Thaddeus Stevens – “LINCOLN” (Touchstone Pictures) Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Supporting Role ANNE HATHAWAY / Fantine – “LES MISÉRABLES” (Universal Pictures) Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture ARGO (Warner Bros. Pictures) BEN AFFLECK / Tony Mendez ALAN ARKIN / Lester Siegel KERRY BISHÉ / Kathy Stafford KYLE CHANDLER / Hamilton Jordan RORY COCHRANE / Lee Schatz BRYAN CRANSTON / Jack O’Donnell CHRISTOPHER DENHAM / Mark Lijek TATE DONOVAN / Bob Anders CLEA DuVALL / Cora Lijek VICTOR GARBER / Ken Taylor JOHN GOODMAN / John Chambers SCOOT McNAIRY / Joe Stafford CHRIS MESSINA / Malinov Primetime Television Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries KEVIN COSTNER / “Devil Anse” Hatfield – “HATFIELDS & McCOYS” (History) Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries JULIANNE MOORE / Sarah Palin – “GAME CHANGE” (HBO) Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series BRYAN CRANSTON / Walter White – “BREAKING BAD” (AMC) Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Drama Series CLAIRE DANES / Carrie Mathison – “HOMELAND” (Showtime) Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Comedy Series ALEC BALDWIN / Jack Donaghy – “30 ROCK” (NBC) Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Comedy Series TINA FEY / Liz Lemon – “30 ROCK” (NBC) Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series DOWNTON ABBEY (PBS) HUGH BONNEVILLE / Robert, Earl of Grantham ZOE BOYLE / Lavinia Swire LAURA CARMICHAEL / Lady Edith Crawley JIM CARTER / Mr. Carson BRENDAN COYLE / John Bates MICHELLE DOCKERY / Lady Mary Crawley JESSICA BROWN FINDLAY / Lady Sybil Crawley SIOBHAN FINNERAN / O’Brien JOANNE FROGGATT / Anna I AIN GLEN / Sir Richard Carlisle THOMAS HOWES / William ROB JAMES-COLLIER / Thomas ALLEN LEECH / Tom Branson PHYLLIS LOGAN / Mrs. Hughes ELIZABETH McGOVERN / Cora, Countess of Grantham SOPHIE McSHERA / Daisy LESLEY NICOL / Mrs. Patmore AMY NUTTALL / Ethel DAVID ROBB / Dr. Clarkson MAGGIE SMITH / Violet, Dowager Countess of Grantham DAN STEVENS / Matthew Crawley PENELOPE WILTON / Isobel Crawley Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Comedy Series MODERN FAMILY (ABC) AUBREY ANDERSON-EMMONS / Lily Tucker-Pritchett JULIE BOWEN / Claire Dunphy TY BURRELL / Phil Dunphy JESSE TYLER FERGUSON / Mitchell Pritchett NOLAN GOULD / Luke Dunphy SARAH HYLAND / Haley Dunphy ED O’NEILL / Jay Pritchett RICO RODRIGUEZ / Manny Delgado ERIC STONESTREET / Cameron Tucker SOFIA VERGARA / Gloria Delgado-Pritchett ARIEL WINTER / Alex Dunphy SAG Awards Honors for Stunt Ensembles: Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture SKYFALL (Columbia Pictures) Outstanding Action Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Television Series GAME OF THRONES (HBO) LIFE ACHIEVEMENT AWARD Screen Actors Guild 49th Annual Life Achievement Award DICK VAN DYKE
Shia LaBeouf appears to be going full-tilt method acting of late. First, the actor said last summer that he was going “all the way” in Danish director Lars von Trier’s Nymphomaniac , and at the Sundance Film Festival , currently underway, he said he dropped acid while working on The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman . [ Related: Shia LaBeouf Ready To Perform Sex ‘For Real’ In Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac? ] LaBeouf said at the festival that he took the hallucinogen, not because he “wanted to be on drugs,” but to relate to his character. The Sundance debut revolves around a young man (LaBeouf) who travels to Romania after the death of his mother (Melissa Leo) and falls for a dangerous young woman, played by Evan Rachel Wood. During one sequence in the film, LaBeouf’s character takes L.S.D. “I’d never done acid before. I remember sending Evan tapes. I remember trying to conjure this and sending tapes. And Evan being like, ‘That’s good, but that’s not but, that is,” he told MTV News. “You reach out to friends and gauge where you’re at. I was sending tapes around and I’d get 50 percents from people and that just starts creeping me out. I was getting really nervous toward the end. Not ’cause I wanted to be on drugs — I’m not trying to mess with the set or anything like that. It’s really just fear that propels people.” The trip apparently took place last August. He told USA Today at the time he dropped acid for The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman in order to “immerse himself in the character.” “What I know of acting, Sean Penn actually strapped up to that [electric] chair in Dead Man Walking ,” he told the paper. “These are the guys I look up to.” [Source: Huffington Post ]
“It just doesn’t matter,” Bill Murray pep-talked to his misfit campers in Meatballs . You’ve got to think that Teams Lincoln and Silver Linings Playbook similarly rallied the troops in the wake of Argo ’s surprise Best Picture and Best Director wins at the Golden Globes. Go home, they might have said, it’s the Golden Globes . It just doesn’t matter. Except that it does, contends In Contention ’s Kris Tapley: “Anyone who dismissively calls it a non-issue doesn’t get it. With six weeks, every little nuance and acceptance speech will be grist for the mill. It matters.” That means that Tommy Lee Jones better start smiling, Golden Globe-winner Anne Hathaway better keep all her acceptance speeches as gracious and humble, and Jennifer Lawrence better recover from her rivals-slamming turn hosting Saturday Night Live . But what matters more are the major Guild award ceremonies in the offing: The Producers Guild Awards on Jan. 26, the Screen Actors Guild Awards on Jan. 27, and the Director’s Guild Awards on Feb. 2. These should give a clearer picture of the Oscar race. Or not. A DGA award, one of the most reliable Oscar indicators, will come to naught should either Ben Affleck or Kathryn Bigelow , neither nominated for an Oscar, win. As Times-Picayune critic Mike Scott noted on NOLA.com, “Usually the Golden Globes at least do a little to clarify an Oscar race or two, but in what is shaping up to be a more difficult-than-usual year in which to predict the Oscar winners, Sunday’s Globes only clouded things… many of the Oscar races would appear to be coin-flip races at this point.” One thing is irrefutable after Sunday night: After Tina Fey and Amy Poehler ’s hosting triumph at the Globes, Seth MacFarlane needs to have better jokes than his Hitler gag on nomination morning. Best Picture No Best Picture-nominee had a better week than Argo with its seven Oscar nominations and Critics Choice and Golden Globe wins for Best Picture and Best Director . No Oscar nomination for Best Director; no problem. Writes Tom O’Neil on GoldDerby.com : “There is a clairvoyant member of the academy’s producers’ branch whose judgment I’ve learned to trust through the years. He’s never been wrong about Best Picture as far as I know, not even when Crash pulled off an upset over Brokeback Mountain . Now he’s backing Argo and feels very strongly about it. Right after Oscar noms were announced and before Argo pulled off those jaw-droppers at the Critics Choice Awards and Golden Globes, he roared at me, ‘Mark my words, Argo is going to win the Oscar. I don’t give a damn that Affleck isn’t nominated for Best Director. That only makes me more hellbent to vote for his movie!” But despite Argo being “back in the mix,” wrote Steven Zeitchik and Glenn Whipp in The Los Angeles Times , Lincoln , leading the pack with 12 nominations, remains the frontrunner. Or not. Silver Linings Playbook , like Lincoln , had a disappointing night at the Globes, but it is the first film since Reds at the 1982 ceremony to have received nominations for Best Picture, Director, all four acting categories, and screenplay. Plus: “People love Silver Linings Playbook ; they respect Zero Dark Thirty ,” write Michael Hogan and Christopher Hogan for their For Your Consideration blog on Huffington Post . Silver Linings Playbook producer Harvey Weinstein catered an Italian lunch for members of the Hollywood Foreign Press, the New York Times reported. Lincoln director Steven Spielberg pulled off the coup of getting the services of “Hillary Clinton’s husband” to introduce his film at the Golden Globes. Advantage: Spielberg. Like Tapley said: It matters. Meanwhile, Kathryn Bigelow, mired in the controversy surrounding her film’s depiction of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” gamely reiterated her “depiction is not endorsement” line of defense in a self-penned article in Wednesday’s The Los Angeles Times . 1. Lincoln 2. Silver Linings Playbook 3. Argo 4. Zero Dark Thirty 5. Life of Pi 6. Beasts of the Southern Wild 7. Les Miserables 8. Amour 9. Django Unchained Best Director With Affleck and Bigelow out of the Best Director race, Spielberg’s chances for a third Academy Award for Best Director are looking good, unless David O. Russell benefits from all that Academy love for Silver Linings Playbook . But don’t count out Ang Lee, noted Anne Thompson on her Thompson on Hollywood blog: “Lee survived the brutal directors derby that left Kathyrn Bigelow, Ben Affleck and Tom Hooper hanging, and he commands serious respect inside the Academy, which gave him the Oscar for Brokeback Mountain . Remember, these 5700 voters are people who know what goes into making movies and this gorgeously executed heart-tugger with worldwide appeal ($400 million and counting) had a high degree of difficulty.” 1.Steven Spielberg (Lincoln) 2. David O. Russell (Silver Linings Playbook) 3. Ang Lee (Life of Pi) 4. Benh Zeitlin (Beasts of the Southern Wild) 5. Michael Haneke (Amour)
Kanye’s salty ex brown banger boo Brooke puts him on blast! Kanye West’s Ex-Girlfriend Brooke Puts The Rapper On Blast Kanye West ’s ex-girlfriend says the Watch the Throne rapper was “insecure” and “vulnerable” and wouldn’t go on stage unless she was there to reassure him. Via RadarOnline reports: “He was quite vulnerable. He was insecure as he couldn’t be with me every day. I got the impression he worried he wasn’t good enough for me. “He needs people to tell him he is good and that he is needed and wanted.” Brooke, 31, met the star backstage at an Usher concert. Then on the cusp of global fame, West was the opening act for the R&B singer. The two dated while his debut album The College Dropout soared up the charts and earned the rapper a Grammy Award nomination. But she says back then he needed her reassurance just to get on stage and perform. “He wouldn’t start his show unless I was at the side of the stage,” Brooke says. “One night the show was delayed because he couldn’t find me. He refused to go on till I’d told him it was going to be OK.” Brooke says they eventually split up because she wasn’t comfortable with the increasing female attention West was getting. Saying that her ex was obsessed with curvy women she says she is not surprised that he is dating Kim Kardashian, who is pregnant with his child. “For Kanye, what other person besides Kim Kardashian is there?” she said. “There’s Halle Berry, J-Lo and Beyoncé but they are all taken. She fits into his brand.” Brooke thinks his decision to settle down was inspired by his desire to be like his mentor Jay-Z. She explained: “He admires Jay-Z and they are very close. Over the years Jay has been a role model to him. “Whether it is starting to be more mature, taking chances with clothes or getting married and starting a family, ultimately he takes those cues from Jay.” Hit the jump for a gallery of all of Ye’s former flames. Peep a timeline of all of Kanye’s gang of girls before Kim below…
The box office has spoken! Jessica Chastain scored the top two weekend spots over Arnold Schwarzenegger ( The Last Stand ) and the double-whammy of Mark Wahlberg and Russell Crowe ( Broken City ) as the Guillermo del Toro -produced fantasy horror Mama scored a #1 debut with $28.1 million and Zero Dark Thirty stepped into second place. (Oscar rival Jennifer Lawrence didn’t come out so bad herself as Silver Linings Playbook expanded to #3 in wide release the same weekend she tenderly slammed her fellow Best Actress contenders on Saturday Night Live .) More power to the ladies! But where, oh where, did Arnold land in his big action comeback? Schwarzenegger’s breezy actioner The Last Stand showed a surprising lack of muscle over the MLK holiday weekend, raking in just $6.7 million over three days and calling into question the potency of the ex-Governator’s screen appeal as it shuffled into tenth place at the box office. Tenth place. Ouch. Broken City , Fox’s Wahlberg-Crowe mano-a-mano crime pic, also debuted to rather limp returns, with a $9.5 million estimated weekend take (numbers via Deadline ). But if Arnie’s box office cache was proven less brawny than expected, the Best Actress-nominated duo of Chastain and Lawrence reflected strong appeal for both Oscar contenders, both of whom notched Golden Globes wins last weekend. For Chastain’s part, the genre gamble that is the feral child-ghost mother pic Mama could have thrown a wrench into her awards campaign but paid off; it currently sits at a better-than-most-horror-pics 62 percent rating at Rotten Tomatoes, but had some pundits wondering if Universal’s timing of the film’s release was part of a crafty plot to ruin the awards season momentum of her campaign for Sony’s Zero Dark Thirty . But audiences came for a double dose of Chastain in two very different roles — one in a prestige pic that underscored Chastain’s steely strength in a man’s world ( ZDT ), the other a genre pic built around an emotionally distant character gradually embracing her latent maternal instincts ( Mama ). Meanwhile, Silver Linings Playbook and its swelling Oscar momentum continues to be owned by Lawrence, whose audience appeal was solidified by SNL ‘s solid ratings Saturday night. With almost exactly a month left before Oscar ballots are due, this race is just starting to get good. Read more on the Oscars : After Golden Globes Win, Is ‘Argo’ The People’s Film? ‘Argo’ & ‘Les Misérables’ Take Top Movie Prizes At Golden Globes High Five! The Best GIFs Of The 2013 Golden Globes Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
In Tree of Life , Jessica Chastain played a mother who could float. In Mama , she’s attacked by one. Chastain shot this dignified little thriller in fall 2011 during the stretch when literally every arthouse theater played at least two of her pictures—between Tree , Coriolanus , The Help , Take Shelter , Texas Killing Fields and The Debt , she was indie cinema’s inescapable new queen. Universal intended to release the Guillermo del Toro -produced Mama last October, but shelved it until the week after Chastain was nominated for an Oscar for Zero Dark Thirty . Is this her reputation-besmirching Norbit ? Pshaw — for my money, it’s her best performance yet. Mama starts with a child’s hand scrawling “Once upon a time,” words that send us all the way back to, uh, the financial collapse of 2008. A Wall Street bigshot (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) has a nervous breakdown: He shoots his co-workers, shoots his wife, and kidnaps his two girls, ages 3 and 1, with the intent of hiding out and shooting them, too. (Alas, murder-suicide is today’s version of parents in the Brothers Grimm casting out their children to survive in the forest.) The place he chooses to pull the trigger is a cabin in the woods that belongs to “Mama,” a ghost who doesn’t take kindly to deadly dads. Side note: Why is Hollywood newly obsessed with monsters who are painfully thin and flexible? It’s as if our entire generation grew up having nightmares about a double-jointed Karen Carpenter. As the opening credits roll, kiddie crayon sketches show us what happened next: The scared blonde tykes cling to their new ghost mommy and revert to crawling on all fours and eating rats. It’s a feral child fairy tale! Cut to the present where we first meet rocker girl Annabel (Chastain) beaming at an EPT test, overjoyed that her boyfriend (Coster-Waldau again) hasn’t gotten her pregnant. Alas, her guy turns out to be the girls’ uncle, and his detectives have finally found Mama’s lair. Surprise! Annabel’s about to be the adopted mother of two crab-walking nightmares, and she really doesn’t want to meet their babysitter. Every beat in Mama is familiar, down to the exact moment you need to close your eyes to dodge a jump-scare, and there’s a goofy child psychiatrist (Daniel Kash) whose actions make about as much sense as Claire Danes in Homeland . But damned if Mama doesn’t transcend its nonsense. As in Paranormal Activity 3 , the girls — now 6 and 8, but psychologically closer to wildcats in captivity — spend a lot of time in their bedroom playing tug-of-war with their spooky spectral caretaker and humming creepy hymns. Young actresses Isabelle Nelisse and Megan Charpentier are excellent, with Nelisse frighteningly primal, and Charpentier as her guilt-stricken and watchful older sister. The best call in the script is the slow wedge that’s driven between the girls, the real world, and the world only they believe in. The kids are scary but they don’t thrill to see Chastain scream. Instead, their loyalty is torn between the only mother they’ve ever known and, you know, the one who doesn’t look like an anorexic hellbeast. One standout chase sequence shows us Mama’s back story in a retro filmstrip style that looks like one of D.W. Griffith’s nightmares. But Mama ‘s smartest choice is the decision by helmer Andres Muschietti (who also co-wrote the script with Barbara Muschietti and Neil Cross) to cast Chastain for insta-class. Chastain has carved out a career in shockingly fast time, but she’s been oddly ill-used by her directors, who tend to see her as a figurehead, not a woman. She’s been shoehorned into archetypes: The fragile doll, the vision of womanly perfection, the sexless drone. It takes this slight but ambitious horror flick to let her be flesh-and-blood fun. Her Annabel is a tough, short-haired dame who’s inked with tattoos under her Misfits t-shirts. She plays guitar in a ’90s-esque girl band — god, I wish we had more of those today — and her cellphone voicemail barks: “This is Annabel. Leave a message at the beep. Fuck you — beep .” As she warms, slowly, to the beast-children, Chastain gets to play an arc, not an archetype, and Mama becomes an honest-to-god film instead of a quickie horror cash-in or a bone-dry drama that relies on Chastain to do all the heavy lifting. Kathryn Bigelow , take note: Surround Chastain with an actual movie, and you might get a Oscar nod the next go-round. Amy Nicholson is a critic, playwright and editor. Her interests include hot dogs, standard poodles, Bruce Willis, and comedies about the utter futility of existence. Follow her on Twitter. Follow Amy Nicholson on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
