Ain’t no party like a Bill Murray dance party? Vulture had a front row seat at Cannes : “At the request of [ Moonrise Kingdom co-star Jared] Gilman, who just had his bar mitzvah and has a taste for dub-step, Bill Murray led the troop onto the dance floor, where the four kids and their accompanying man-child wiggled and jumped around with abandon. It was a scene of such next-level adorability that nearly everyone in the immediate vicinity pulled out a camera phone. ‘We’re just chilling! We’re just chilling!’ Murray shouted out as he put the kibosh on each video in turn. Then he’d go back to more happy wriggling to songs like ‘I’m So Excited.'” [ Vulture ]
Undoubtedly there will be tons of photographers and screaming fans outside as Ben Stiller, Jessica Chastain, Chris Rock, Martin Short, Jada Pinkett-Smith and David Schwimmer ascend the steps at the Palais des Festivals for the world premiere of their latest film. And it will be the best look at them that the crowd will have all night, particularly since they won’t be onscreen — the movie is Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted . The latest DreamWorks Animation effort may seem like a surprising fit for Cannes, usually perceived as the stomping grounds of the world’s great auteurs, but the festival has long embraced mass Hollywood releases on the cusp of their blockbuster rollouts. In 2005 Cannes hosted Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith and even piped over a massive sound system Darth Vader breathing along the Croisette in the hours leading up to the movie’s zany red carpet premiere. And from Shrek to Kung Fu Panda 2 , DWA has wrangled frequent Cannes premieres complete with screaming fans and all the festival trimmings. “This is my first time here in Cannes. To have my voice in Cannes is a good first step to actually being in a movie here,” Ben Stiller, who voices the lion character Alex, said to laughs Friday. Co-director Tom McGrath voiced a bit of trepidation about the likes of Madagascar (which is screening out of competition) with the likes of others in the Official Selection including the latest from David Cronenberg ( Cosmopolis ), Jacques Audiard ( Rust and Bone ), Abbas Kiarostami ( Like Someone in Love ) and Walter Salles ( On the Road ). “We went to opening night and saw our cartoon [in a montage of Cannes films] and we thought, ‘Do we deserve to be here?'” McGrath said. “But the great thing about Cannes is that it’s a festival for all kinds of films – and this is a film about traveling through Europe, so what better place?” The third installment of the Madagascar franchise finds the lion Alex (Stiller), Marty the zebra (Rock) and the rest of the gang trying to find a way to return to their beloved New York City (you may have had to see the first two installments to get that one, but just go with it). Their quest takes them through Europe, landing in Monaco of all places in the famed casino. They find a perfect cover: A traveling circus, which naturally introduces new characters to the mix. “I auditioned for this part, and I was so happy when I got the part,” said Jessica Chastain who plays a seductive jaguar in the feature. “I’m an actor who wants to do all kinds of things.” “It’s a very difficult thing to do,” McGrath said about voicing movie animation. “You have to project that you’re running in your voice when you’re sitting in a studio and you have to change emotion. That’s hard to do when you’re only behind a microphone.” Added Chastain, “I hadn’t done anything before in which I didn’t work with another actor.” Still, the group said the medium allows for the actors to take time and not feel the pressure of time when working with a large crew, allowing them to workshop their characters to a degree, which was one creative appeal for taking part in Madagascar . But there was also another. “Cash!” said Rock. “And it was a lot of fun.” Read more of Movieline’s coverage of Cannes 2012 here .
It was bound to happen eventually, and here we are: Three days after the Zanesville Zooicide that cost dozens of unleashed zoo animals their lives, PETA vice president Lisa Lange wants Cameron Crowe’s upcoming We Bought a Zoo to warn viewers off from wild-animal ownership.
In addition to giving the Gaddafi assassination the ol’ Taiwanese ‘toon treatment , the good folks at Next Media Animation have processed the recent Avengers trailer through their kooky CG filters. The result? One and a half minutes of hilarious superhero (and gyrating ScarJo ) action that imagines the titular crime fighters are called to assemble to battle the evil, cell phone-hacking, nude pic-distributing Loki. There’s no way the actual movie will be this entertaining. Stick around for more Buzz Break!
Ben Stiller hosted last night’s episode of SNL , and while he didn’t quite bring the game that Alec Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy did in weeks past, he did bring an old friend: Derek Zoolander. Stiller revived the titular male model from the 2001 comedy during Weekend Update, where Bill Hader’s Stefon claimed him as a date. Hope you’re prepared to handle Derek’s “cold coffee” face on this pleasant Sunday morning.
It’s HOLLYWOOD.TV Celebrity GPS! And while you’re celebrating 4/20, take a look at this! This episode features Shenae Grimes, who’s visibly quite pleased about her new boyfriend, Reese Witherspoon, who unlike General Electric, paid her taxes, Mallika Sherawat, fresh from Bollywood and visiting Perez Hilton before jetting off to Cannes for her latest film premiere, godfather James Gandolfini, who’s momentarily locked out of his ride, and Ben Stiller, fresh out of House of Blues. “Glamour Zombie” by Brandon Hilton.
A “cocky” Jesse Eisenberg hosted last night’s edition of Saturday Night Live , though his performance was a bit lost in the excitement from the worst kept secret of the week: The actor’s first (OK, maybe second, considering that they most likely caught up during dress rehearsal) face-to-face meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whom Eisenberg portrayed in The Social Network . But, stunt cameos aside, how did the recent Oscar nominee fare?
Posted onDecember 22, 2010by|Comments Off on The 9 Most Scathing Critical Responses to Little Fockers
Just days after critics finished eviscerating Yogi Bear , they’ve unsheathed their knives again for the Meet the Parents threequel Little Fockers . Some holiday! Currently the film is hanging out an 9% fresh rating on Rotten Tomates, which is 5% lower than Yogi Bear . Time will tell whether Gulliver’s Travels can top them both, but for now let’s take a look at harshest Fockers reviews, if only to see how many puns critics can make on the word “fock.”
Posted onDecember 19, 2010by|Comments Off on SNL Scorecard: Did Jeff Bridges Host the Best Show of the Year, Son?
Perhaps I’m in the holiday spirit (maybe), perhaps it’s the amount of wine consumed from back-to-back holiday parties (more likely), but last night’s Jeff Bridges-hosted installment of Saturday Night Live was, well, quite great. Not the laugh-out-loud funniest show of the season, but, from top to bottom, there wasn’t a whole lot of “bad.” I mean, it was so good that the best sketch of the night was the third to last of the show. Bridges, who last co-hosted in 1983 with his brother Beau, did an admirable job as host but, more importantly, did an admirable job of not getting in the way of a cast that was obviously on a mission before they took a break for the holidays.
This weekend sees the release of the gritty, critically acclaimed heist movie The Town , where Ben Affleck carries the action not only in front of the camera in the lead role, but also behind the camera as the film’s director. Indeed, some of the greatest movies ever made were directed by actors who also appeared in their films — consider that highwater mark set by Orson Welles with Citizen Kane — but how have cinematic multitaskers like Affleck, George Clooney, Clint Eastwood and others fared over the past decade?
