Brand-new teaser clip also shows off song titles for first installment of Green Day’s three-album series. By James Montgomery Green Day’s ¡Uno! cover Photo: Green Day unveiled a teaser trailer on Thursday (June 14) for their upcoming
In this week’s Hobnobbing, we wonder if the new format is really worth the five extra bucks. By Amy Wilkinson Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games” Photo: We interrupt your regularly scheduled Finnick speculation to bring you this special announcement: “The Hunger Games: Catching Fire” will light up IMAX theaters come November 2013! (OK, the news broke Wednesday, but I don’t write my column until Thursday.) Anyway, this is big (as in 70 feet tall) news … if you like that sort of thing. While “The Hunger Games” was re-mastered for IMAX screens, director Francis Lawrence intends to shoot entire “Catching Fire” sequences in the larger-than-life format. As my colleague Kevin P. Sullivan noted , this will be only the sixth major studio film to be partially shot in IMAX — news to which my reaction was roughly, “Okie doke…” See, I’ve never really understood the appeal of IMAX. Isn’t it just for people with poor eyesight who need to see things really large? And why should I pay roughly five extra bucks for the privilege? I have good vision! To wit, I’ve never purposely sought out an IMAX screening. One time on vacation in Seattle my friend insisted we see “The Lion King” (nearly a decade after its initial release) in IMAX, and since I didn’t want to be a chump, I went along. I’ve probably been to one IMAX movie since (it wasn’t “Avatar,” by the way, my hometown theater is lame), but I can’t help but wonder if I’m missing something. According to conventional wisdom and my previously mentioned colleague Kevin (who graciously humored my IMAX questions and concerns), the format is considered the height of immersive movie-going technology. (So much more worth the price than 3-D, he says.) Everything’s huge! Everything’s so detailed! Everything else in the theater just disappears! It’s like that guy in the front row wearing the bowler hat festooned with Christmas lights doesn’t exist! Fine, fine. I get it. And I’m willing to give it another try because Katniss and Peeta deserve as much. (It will also give me another ready-made column idea come next Thanksgiving!) And with speculation swirling that the IMAX-friendly filming will likely focus on the nifty new Quarter Quell arena, I’m simultaneously thrilled and sick to my stomach over the idea of being completely immersed in the bloody battle. Nonetheless, let the IMAX Games begin! “Catching Fire” hits theaters November 22, 2013. Are you excited to see “Catching Fire” in IMAX? Or is it much ado about nothing? Sound off in the comments below and tweet me @amymwilk with your thoughts and suggestions for future columns! Earlier “Hunger Games” columns: » “Hunger Games”: Five Things We Learned At Movie Awards » How “Catching Fire” Could Set Taylor Kitsch’s Career Ablaze » “Hunger Games” At The Movie Awards: Dos And Don’ts » “Catching Fire” Countdown: What to Watch While You Wait » Francis Lawrence’s “Catching Fire” To-Do List Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘The Hunger Games’ Related Photos ‘Hunger Games’ World Premiere Red Carpet The Hunger Games
Sweet baby Jesus help us! California Pastor Dies From Flesh-Eating Bacteria A long-serving and well-loved pastor has been killed by a flesh-eating bacteria infection that has already left five others seriously ill. Linda Snyder, from Sacramento, who is a preacher at city’s United Methodist Church, died this morning following a six-month battle with the deadly germ called necrotizing-fasciitis. She was the sixth person to have developed a flesh-eating infection over the course of the last two months. At the beginning of June South Carolina grandmother Louise Thompson underwent emergency surgery to remove infected flesh from her leg and was in a coma for five days. And last month student Aimee Copeland from Georgia College had to have her leg, her foot and both hands amputated and is still in intensive care after bacteria got into a cut she developed following a fall. Mrs Snyder contracted the deadly disease on January 6 after bacteria got into a wound, possibly an abscess, she had developed in December. Doctors tried to contain the spread of the bacteria, but her daughter Karen told Fox 40 that her mother had developed lots of complications and medical staff were unable to contain it. At this point if we get a cotdamn paper cut we’re goin’ to the hospital IMMEDIATELY! Images via ABC/CBS/AP Source
Behind The Scenes Grammy Weekend Documentary Premieres In L.A. A documentary with footage from the 2012 Grammy Weekend, which was also the weekend of the death of superstar Whitney Houston, was premiered earlier this week at the Goldenson Theatre in L.A. The film, which is appropriately titled “A Death In The Family: The Show Must Go On,” provides a behind-the-scenes look at how the singer’s death affected the award show and the atmosphere leading up to the live broadcast. LL Cool J, who hosted the show and was on hand for the premiere, recalls the gig as “the most challenging moment I’ve faced in my career.” The 25-minute film can be viewed on the Grammy Awards website and at the Grammy Museum in L.A. Images via Wenn
San Francisco Giants pitcher, the 22nd man to toss a perfect game, got us thinking about musical perfectos. By James Montgomery The San Fransisco Giants’ Matt Cain Photo: On Wednesday night, San Francisco Giants pitcher Matt Cain made baseball history — and totally helped my fantasy team — by tossing a perfect game against the Houston Astros. For those who have no idea what that means, Cain faced the minimum of batters — 27 — and didn’t allow a single base-runner. That means no walks, no hits, no anything over nine innings (with 14 strikeouts to boot). If that sounds impressive, well, it is : Only 22 pitchers have ever thrown a perfect game in the 143-year history of Major League Baseball, and somewhat surprisingly, the list of those who’ve accomplished the feat reads less like a who’s who of MLB greats as it does a who’s that ? For every Hall of Famer (Cy Young, Sandy Koufax, Catfish Hunter) to reach perfection, there are just as many pitchers who made history and then were history. I’m talking about the likes of Len Barker, Mike Witt and Charlie Robertson, each of whom were perfect for one glorious game and never again came close to matching that perfection. And yet, that’s what makes the perfect game so special. On any day, anyone can throw one; all it takes is the right mixture of luck, skill and, well, more luck. And yet, of the thousands of men who’ve toed the rubber in the majors over the past century-plus, fewer than 2 dozen have actually done it. The perfect game is the ultimate mythologizer: Pulling it off automatically earns you a permanent place in baseball lore — and for most, it will be the unquestionable highlight of their professional career. So, in honor of Cain’s feat, I’ve spent the majority of the day trying to figure out what the musical equivalent of a perfect game might be. Certainly, it has to be historic: an album or song that came out of nowhere to define a time or an era to such a degree that it has become the stuff of music legend. Secondly, it has to be the crowning achievement of an artist’s career, especially since the overwhelming number of pitchers who have tossed perfectos are basically the MLB equivalent of one-hit-wonders (I’m looking at you, Philip Humber). Sure, the Beatles, Radiohead and Jay-Z have probably all been perfect, but, like Young or Koufax or Hunter, what’s one more accolade to any of them? And finally, well, it has to be perfect : the perfect album for the time, the perfect song for the moment, the perfectly recognizable riff or sample — we’re talking history here, people. Anyway, here are my picks for music’s 10 perfect games — and if there’s an album or song I’ve missed, let me know in the comments below. The Sex Pistols, Never Mind the Bullocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols Lean and mean, sneering and snotty, it’s not only one of the most perfect albums of all time, it may very well be the most perfect debut in history. When it was released in 1977, it shocked pretty much everybody, and its historical status was only secured when the Pistols would implode following a disastrous U.S. tour in ’78. In the years since, it’s become a touchstone of punk, not to mention a lesson to any band that dares to fly too close to the sun. Hope you’re paying attention, Dallas Braden. The Knack, “My Sharona” Released as a single from the band’s Get the Knack debut, “Sharona” quickly surged to the top of the Billboard charts, where it would remain for six weeks (and be named the #1 song on the publication’s year-end pop chart). The song’s iconic guitar line (dunna-nunna-nuh-nuh!) has since become a thing of rock lore, the soundtrack to a million bar mitzvahs and just as many stadium rally chants, and though the Knack could never replicate its success, for one brief, shining moment, they were perfect. The Sugarhill Gang, “Rapper’s Delight” It’s the song that brought hip-hop out of the rec rooms and into the masses, crossing over to both the pop and R&B charts when it was released in 1979. Chances are, in the years since, you’ve heard its iconic bass line (sampled from Chic’s “Good Times”) and can probably recite its lyrics verbatim (“I said a hip hop, a hippie, a hippie to the hip hip hop … “). Not too bad for three dudes from Englewood, New Jersey. Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock, “It Takes Two” One of the most sampled (and revered) hip-hop tracks of the pre-breakout era (like 1988), merely reading the “It Takes Two” title is probably enough to conjure up the sound of the wailing diva belting out the hook (or those “Woo- Yeah s”). It swept the streets and crossed over to the clubs, and has since become a staple at weddings and dance parties — and no, the dynamic duo could never match its success. But they don’t have to; they’re in the perfecto club. Young MC, “Bust a Move” The biggest hit from Young’s breakout Stone Cold Rhymin’ album, it not only won a Grammy for Best Rap Performance, but made the top 10 of the Billboard Hot 100 and paved the way for the rap takeover that would follow in the ’90s. Oh, and Flea plays bass on it. One of the greatest hip-hop tracks of all time and probably one of the first ones you ever saw a video for on MTV. Don’t just stand there, bust a move! Alanis Morrissette, Jagged Little Pill Buoyed by the Dave Coulier-baiting “You Oughta Know” (or any of the five smash singles that followed), Morrissette’s debut sold a staggering 33 million copies worldwide and basically brought the roiling, riot-grrl spirit to the mainstream. Not surprisingly, Morrissette never again reached the heights she did here, but if you’re making a list of albums that unquestionably defined the 1990s, well, this had better be on it. Craig Mack, “Flava in Ya Ear” The song that basically put Bad Boy on the map, it featured a cameo by a then up-and-coming Notorious B.I.G., not to mention Puff Daddy. It’s stark, black-and-white video is equally iconic, though the song is perhaps best known for the fact that Mack all but disappeared following its release. Still, “Flava” is so of a time and a moment in hip hop that it’s subsequently earned classic status, meaning that somewhere, Mack can rest easy. The Verve, “Bittersweet Symphony” Breakout, genre-defining smash from Brit-rock lifers the Verve, “Bittersweet” — and its accompanying music video — were smashes on both sides of the pond. Too bad the Rolling Stones’ Keith Richards and Mick Jagger caught wind of it and sued the band for royalties, effectively ending their run just as it was beginning. But legality aside, you cannot deny the song’s thrilling, chilling rush, which, 15 years after it debuted, still raises goose bumps — kind of like watching a perfect game, really. Neutral Milk Hotel, In the Aeroplane Over the Sea When it was first released in 1998, its sparse production and spine-tingling emoting confused many — though, in the decade since, it’s become a touchstone of American indie, a harrowing, haunting rumination on life, death and reincarnation (and Anne Frank) that mastermind Jeff Mangum has yet to follow up. And who knows if he ever will; pitching a second perfecto has proven impossible to date. The Postal Service, Give Up One of the most unlikely success stories in recent memory, it started as a project between Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard and electronic musician Jimmy Tamborello, and thanks to gently bubbling hits like “Such Great Heights,” it went on to become the best-selling album released on Sub Pop since Bleach, the debut from some band called Nirvana. Since then, neither man seems willing to embrace the idea of recording a follow-up, and really, why would they? Perfection usually only comes around once. Cee Lo Green, “F— You” A song so huge it not only managed to make Green into a solo star, but helped launch the career of Bruno Mars too. It went from Internet sensation to the Billboard Hot 100 and has since become Green’s signature song — which, given his time in the Goodie Mob and Gnarls Barkley, is certainly saying something. He’ll probably never be this perfect again, but you can never take this smash away from him. What are you musical perfect games in your book? Let us know in the comments!
“After the show I have to really put some more attention to sex in my life,” Marina Abramovic vows near the beginning of Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present , an elegantly observed, sleekly packaged look at an artist whose career-long balance of enigma and self-exposure culminated in a 2010 retrospective at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. “Semi-intellectual artist at the top of her career,” goes Abramovic’s self-drafted personal ad, “looking for single male.” My head completed a few full rotations taking in what all’s going on in that sentence, but let’s begin with the part about being on top. That Abramovic seems to have willed her own peak into being — the German artist Frank Uwe Laysiepen (AKA “Ulay”) teases his former partner about whether she now prefers to be addressed as “the grandmother of performance art” or “the diva of performance art” — is deftly interlayered with director and cinematographer Matthew Akers’s presentation of a life and career united by the stubborn pursuit of meaning. The picture gives a sense of life’s fragments aligning, finally, to form a coherent story. What that story is depends on who’s doing the telling, of course. At the outset of her three-month MoMA performance — where the artist sat like a Buddha in a red (or blue, or white) dress, receiving an intrigued, then entranced, then near-hysterical public, one at a time, for a bout of eye contact across a wooden table — Abramovic outlines the three different versions of herself, her favorite being the pure, unshackled sensibility watching over the two other, more mortal selves. Hers is a very physical feat, as is made clear; there’s a bedpan built into her chair, and Ulay describes being wrecked by a similar performance during their partnership. As she did then, Marina carries on, outlasting her lover and smiting her doubters, a martyr to an indeterminate and therefore capacious cause — to “create a charismatic space” that will slow down time, return us to the present, absorb our ills, reflect us to ourselves, and/or furnish an insatiable attention-seeker with patiently queued reams of admirers. There is a careful reverence to these kinds of commissioned artist studies, and the earnest styling of the subject as a kind of time-bending sensei — a destination and a journey — might feel more poncy if it hadn’t played out pretty much exactly that way over three months in midtown Manhattan. Walking into the atrium the first day of the exhibition, Abramovic jokes about feeling like Marie Antoinette being led to her fate. But if the crossover success of “The Artist Is Present” came as a surprise, The Artist Is Present suggests a woman very consciously stepping forward to collect her due. “Excuse me,” Abramovic says in her smoky Balkan accent, “I’m 63 — I don’t want to be alternative anymore.” But the HBO treatment (it will air on that channel after a brief theatrical run) makes a strange and occasionally unsatisfying match for its subject. Entire corollary documentaries are glimpsed in a scene or a comment: Ambramovic’s ambition is alluded to in somewhat dark tones; the footage of striking and often disturbing previous performances barely outlines a complex and sometimes confounding sensibility; gallerist Sean Kelly speaks of his team’s invention of a market for her work, a model that has become a standard in the performance-art world; Ulay’s reappearance and the couple’s awkward, poignant reunion suggests untold romantic galaxies. And then there is curator Klaus Biesenbach, who in word and manner reveals a critical, under-investigated side of Abramovic. “Klaus, I love you,” Abramovic murmurs to him in the moments before her performance begins. “Is this okay?” Biesenbach acquires a curiously steely look when he describes the way “Marina seduces everyone she ever meets.” They are great friends now, he says, repeating it twice, “but we’re divorced .” Groupies and pranksters abound, as do would-be artists who see themselves as part of the show; all shenanigans are quickly shut down as Abramovic lowers her head like a mournful deity. In fact, Biesenbach says, the exhibition is ultimately a self-portrait, and just as he mistakenly believed Abramovic to be in love with him, so the same misunderstanding is repeated “with every single person in the atrium.” The better part of Abramovic’s personality slips out in asides and interactions, rather than in the rehearsed bits about her trinity of selves. Eerily untouched by age, her imposing physicality is softened by girlish accents. A shadow storyline trails Akers’s art show procedural, and it involves, of all plainly human things, Marina Abramovic getting laid. And yet the sideways frequency with which the issue comes up feels telling. As so often seems to be the case with successful women, for Abramovic being at the top of her career means forever looking past that next big project for her “other” life to begin, the one where she falls in love and has heaps of sex and looks up the hot Asian guy from day X and hour Y of her MoMA residency. At the outset Abramovic says she wanted to show the world, one time, the unglamorous underside of art’s creation; in fact the result has a slickness some might find disconcerting. Seeing her pinned down and packaged as an art star or even just a documentary “personality” might feel antithetical to a body of work committed to its own transience. And yet The Artist Is Present is ultimately an Abramovic production, whether the purists care to acknowledge her love of designer clothes and way with a one-liner or not. Why shouldn’t this be the woman who made an entire city confront the tyranny of time’s passage? Because I wasn’t seeking anything so grand from this clean-lined documentary, I came away moved most of all by the perseverance of an artist who, having put the time in, was rewarded with a moment that set a life lived largely through performance into meaningful relief. There’s also something to be said for having your ex come and pay homage to you, on your turf, at a MoMA restrospective of your career. As Ulay himself demurs: Only respect. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
“After the show I have to really put some more attention to sex in my life,” Marina Abramovic vows near the beginning of Marina Abramovic: The Artist Is Present , an elegantly observed, sleekly packaged look at an artist whose career-long balance of enigma and self-exposure culminated in a 2010 retrospective at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art. “Semi-intellectual artist at the top of her career,” goes Abramovic’s self-drafted personal ad, “looking for single male.” My head completed a few full rotations taking in what all’s going on in that sentence, but let’s begin with the part about being on top. That Abramovic seems to have willed her own peak into being — the German artist Frank Uwe Laysiepen (AKA “Ulay”) teases his former partner about whether she now prefers to be addressed as “the grandmother of performance art” or “the diva of performance art” — is deftly interlayered with director and cinematographer Matthew Akers’s presentation of a life and career united by the stubborn pursuit of meaning. The picture gives a sense of life’s fragments aligning, finally, to form a coherent story. What that story is depends on who’s doing the telling, of course. At the outset of her three-month MoMA performance — where the artist sat like a Buddha in a red (or blue, or white) dress, receiving an intrigued, then entranced, then near-hysterical public, one at a time, for a bout of eye contact across a wooden table — Abramovic outlines the three different versions of herself, her favorite being the pure, unshackled sensibility watching over the two other, more mortal selves. Hers is a very physical feat, as is made clear; there’s a bedpan built into her chair, and Ulay describes being wrecked by a similar performance during their partnership. As she did then, Marina carries on, outlasting her lover and smiting her doubters, a martyr to an indeterminate and therefore capacious cause — to “create a charismatic space” that will slow down time, return us to the present, absorb our ills, reflect us to ourselves, and/or furnish an insatiable attention-seeker with patiently queued reams of admirers. There is a careful reverence to these kinds of commissioned artist studies, and the earnest styling of the subject as a kind of time-bending sensei — a destination and a journey — might feel more poncy if it hadn’t played out pretty much exactly that way over three months in midtown Manhattan. Walking into the atrium the first day of the exhibition, Abramovic jokes about feeling like Marie Antoinette being led to her fate. But if the crossover success of “The Artist Is Present” came as a surprise, The Artist Is Present suggests a woman very consciously stepping forward to collect her due. “Excuse me,” Abramovic says in her smoky Balkan accent, “I’m 63 — I don’t want to be alternative anymore.” But the HBO treatment (it will air on that channel after a brief theatrical run) makes a strange and occasionally unsatisfying match for its subject. Entire corollary documentaries are glimpsed in a scene or a comment: Ambramovic’s ambition is alluded to in somewhat dark tones; the footage of striking and often disturbing previous performances barely outlines a complex and sometimes confounding sensibility; gallerist Sean Kelly speaks of his team’s invention of a market for her work, a model that has become a standard in the performance-art world; Ulay’s reappearance and the couple’s awkward, poignant reunion suggests untold romantic galaxies. And then there is curator Klaus Biesenbach, who in word and manner reveals a critical, under-investigated side of Abramovic. “Klaus, I love you,” Abramovic murmurs to him in the moments before her performance begins. “Is this okay?” Biesenbach acquires a curiously steely look when he describes the way “Marina seduces everyone she ever meets.” They are great friends now, he says, repeating it twice, “but we’re divorced .” Groupies and pranksters abound, as do would-be artists who see themselves as part of the show; all shenanigans are quickly shut down as Abramovic lowers her head like a mournful deity. In fact, Biesenbach says, the exhibition is ultimately a self-portrait, and just as he mistakenly believed Abramovic to be in love with him, so the same misunderstanding is repeated “with every single person in the atrium.” The better part of Abramovic’s personality slips out in asides and interactions, rather than in the rehearsed bits about her trinity of selves. Eerily untouched by age, her imposing physicality is softened by girlish accents. A shadow storyline trails Akers’s art show procedural, and it involves, of all plainly human things, Marina Abramovic getting laid. And yet the sideways frequency with which the issue comes up feels telling. As so often seems to be the case with successful women, for Abramovic being at the top of her career means forever looking past that next big project for her “other” life to begin, the one where she falls in love and has heaps of sex and looks up the hot Asian guy from day X and hour Y of her MoMA residency. At the outset Abramovic says she wanted to show the world, one time, the unglamorous underside of art’s creation; in fact the result has a slickness some might find disconcerting. Seeing her pinned down and packaged as an art star or even just a documentary “personality” might feel antithetical to a body of work committed to its own transience. And yet The Artist Is Present is ultimately an Abramovic production, whether the purists care to acknowledge her love of designer clothes and way with a one-liner or not. Why shouldn’t this be the woman who made an entire city confront the tyranny of time’s passage? Because I wasn’t seeking anything so grand from this clean-lined documentary, I came away moved most of all by the perseverance of an artist who, having put the time in, was rewarded with a moment that set a life lived largely through performance into meaningful relief. There’s also something to be said for having your ex come and pay homage to you, on your turf, at a MoMA restrospective of your career. As Ulay himself demurs: Only respect. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Co-writer Damon Lindelof tells MTV News if there were a follow-up, ‘it wouldn’t be ‘Alien.’ ‘ By Kevin P. Sullivan Charlize Theron and Idris Elba in “Prometheus” Photo: 20th Century Fox In the wake of the mind explosion that was Ridley Scott’s ” Prometheus ,” both fans and haters have been curiously posturing about what it could all mean and whether a sequel is likely or even possible. Though after a solid opening weekend, the fate of a “Prometheus” sequel may now lie in the hands of a Fox executive instead of the creative talent, we spoke with co-writer Damon Lindelof about whether the events and ideas in “Prometheus” leave an opening for a follow-up. Spoilers ahead. Much of the philosophy in “Prometheus” revolves around the unsatisfying nature of ultimate answers, and the film purposely avoids resolving some of the story’s lingering questions. So could a sequel exist without contradicting the ideas of the original? Lindelof told us that “Prometheus” was always intended to be a stand-alone film, but there is the possibility for more story. “The conversations that we had about the story of ‘Prometheus’ and how it would end were always predicated on the idea that there would not be a sequel, that a sequel was not a foregone conclusion, and that the movie itself had to have a feeling of being complete,” Lindelof said. “That being said, we also wanted the audience to feel that, like, if there were a sequel to ‘Prometheus,’ it wouldn’t be ‘Alien.’ ” That idea of a separate narrative arc from “Alien” led to the loose end of Shaw flying off to find the Engineers, so that if a sequel were to happen, it would take the audience to unfamiliar territory. “Something needed to happened at the end of this movie that clearly steered and announced that the direction of the trajectory of this story moving forward was not going to head toward LV-426 and a crashed, derelict ship with a Space Jockey with an exploded chest surrounded by eggs, that Shaw and David were headed in a different direction that was probably not going to result in that,” Lindelof said. “Those two things were sort of simultaneous to each other, so you’re both saying, ‘We want this movie to stand on its own, but we also acknowledge that it needs to end in a way that is very clear that if the story were to progress (if there were a sequel) ‘ We tried to thread the needle between the two ideas.” If the concept of no sequel to “Prometheus” upsets you because of the remaining mysteries, Lindelof suggests you look toward Scott for your answers, because he has them. “Then, of course, for all this talk of unanswered questions or the characters theorizing but not really getting their theories proved or, more importantly, for getting their makers to answer for the condition of the movie, Ridley and I and Jon [Spaihts] all discussed what we felt those answers were and came to agreement on them, so despite whatever slings and arrows come our way, this is not a case of, ‘Well, we didn’t know, so we didn’t bother trying,'” Lindelof said. “We definitely knew, and Ridley decided that the more interesting movie was one where we didn’t explicitly spell that stuff out.” So because Scott designed the movie to be the way that it is, those questions should drive you want more, just like Shaw at the end of the film, but Lindelof promised that the answers you might be searching for could be hidden inside “Prometheus.” “I really believe — and this is not shamed hucksterism — that upon multiple viewings of the movie or just entering into conversation with people who have seen it, there are a lot more answers there than people think there are and room for theories, but the movie needed to end in a way that is Shaw still searching,” he said. “She is not satisfied with the answers that she got. I think that’s very indicative, hopefully, if Shaw is supposed to be the audience proxy, they’re supposed to be feeling the same way that she is at the end of the movie.” For all the “Lost” fans out there, this might all sound like a familiar song and dance, especially coming from Lindelof, and the writer knew he was in for that comparison when he took on Scott’s orders. “To be completely candid, I knew that I’d eat some s— for that for the rest of my career, if there is no sequel to ‘Prometheus,’ but did it anyway, and had Ridley asked me to do it the other way, I would have done that too,” Lindelof said. “This movie is about realizing his vision. He’s only directed three science-fiction films, and now ‘Prometheus’ is one of them, and if he told me to jump off a bridge, I would.” Check out everything we’ve got on “Prometheus.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos Experts React To The ‘Prometheus’ Trailer
Sources say Miley is working on music that is ‘very adult and sexy and believable.’ By Jocelyn Vena Miley Cyrus Photo: Getty Images Miley Cyrus is hard at work on her fourth studio album. And while she attempted to branch out into a more adult sound on 2010’s Can’t Be Tamed, sources say this next studio release will be “very adult and sexy” and, more importantly, “believable.” Sources tell E! News that the former Disney princess, who just announced her engagement to Liam Hemsworth , is “having fun making music for the first time in her career.” She’s reportedly sexing things up with producers Pharrell Williams and Hit-Boy, recording music in Miami and Los Angeles. The insider continues, “We are watching a young girl turn into a young woman.” Cyrus is also taking other steps towards a more mature sound. She’s working with music manager Bruce Flohr of Red Light Management and is no longer with the manager she had when she was closely associated with Disney. The source adds that people in her camp are referring to the musical move as “Miley 2.0.” The fact that Miley is focused on her career might make her dad, Billy Ray Cyrus, happy. Sources tell Radar Online that he’s hoping his 19-year-old daughter won’t rush to the altar. The source adds that neither Billy Ray nor Miley’s mother, Tish, was surprised by the engagement. In fact, Hemsworth asked for their permission before he popped the question. “They knew it was coming,” the Radar source said. “Liam lived with Miley and her parents when they began dating in 2009. Billy Ray and Tish love him like a son. However, Billy Ray is concerned about how young they are and he hopes that they aren’t in a rush to get married. Billy Ray hopes the engagement will be very long, but he isn’t opposed to the marriage at all. Billy Ray got divorced from his first wife Cindy, though, and he just doesn’t want Miley to go through a similar heartbreak.” The same day the news broke, Billy Ray tweeted his congratulations to his little girl, writing, “All I ever hoped for as a Daddy was to see my kids reach their dreams. To find happiness … peace of mind … and someday know … true love.” Hemsworth asked Cyrus to marry him on May 31, after three years of dating. They met on the set of “The Last Song.” So what kind of ring did he get her? Well, she’s rocking a 3.5-carat diamond in a Neil Lane-designed setting that Hemsworth helped create. Related Photos A Look Back: Miley Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth Related Artists Miley Cyrus
‘Truth’ will look at struggles of transgender people around the world. By Gil Kaufman Janet Jackson Photo: MTV News Janet Jackson has spent her career bouncing from TV to music and movies, but now the R&B legend is moving into the producing game. According to the The Advocate , Jackson has agreed to executive-produce a documentary called “Truth” about the lives of transgender people around the world. Not only is Jackson, 46, working behind-the-scenes on the movie, but she is expected to sit for some on-camera interviews as well. The movie will start filming this summer. In a statement announcing the film, Jackson said she agreed to sign on to help stop discrimination against the transgender community. “All people are very important to me. I’ve been fortunate to make friends and learn about very different lives,” Jackson said in a statement. ” ‘Truth’ is our small chance to ask that you try and understand someone who lives their life in a way that is a little bit different from yours, even though all of our hearts are the same. We want to stop the hate and find understanding.” Director Robert Jason, who previously directed the Style Network documentary “Style Exposed: Born Male, Living Female,” about four transgender New Yorkers, promised that Jackson will play a prominent part in the finished product. “Janet Jackson will take us on a visually innovative, cerebral journey through the turbulent lives of transgendered people of all ages around the world and their epic struggle for equality,” he said in a statement announcing the project. “This film will highlight landmark mainstream stories and provide a glimpse at others that will change the gender landscape of the world forever. Just as it is hard to believe that there ever was a time when different components of society were required to use separate drinking fountains, it is as incredible that one’s gender expression remains just such a target for discrimination.” Jackson’s involvement in the documentary comes on the heels of last month’s news that Against Me! singer Tom Gabel has come out as transgender and is now living as a woman, Laura Jane Grace. Gabel became the most high-profile major-label musician to undergo a gender transformation. Related Artists Janet Jackson
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