Also in Wednesday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, Willie Nelson throws support behind the Weinstein Company’s Lawless , and production on Iron Man 3 is suspended after Robert Downey Jr. injures his ankle. NY Film Festival Unveils Line-up The Main Slate line-up for the 50th New York Film Festival will be comprised of 32 movies, including Roger Michell’s Hyde Park on Hudson , which stars Bill Murray as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt; Noah Baumbach’s Frances Ha , a comedy he wrote with actress Greta Gerwig about an aspiring dancer in New York City; and Brian De Palma’s thriller Passion , with Noomi Rapace and Rachel McAdams. The 1960s era rock ‘n’ roll film Not Fade Away , by The Sopranos creator David Chase will also premiere as the festival’s centerpiece. For the complete list, check out the NYFF website. NY Times Columnist Booed By Pattinson Fans At Cosmopolis Q&A New York Times reporter and columnist David Carr incurred the wrath of RPatz fans at a Times Talks Q&A session when he asked the British actor, “So, if you and Kristen have trouble, it’s like Charles and Di having trouble?” The New York Daily News reports. Willie Nelson Down with Lawless The Weinstein Company announced that country-music star Willie Nelson is lending his support to the movie distributor’s gangster bootlegger picture Lawless. Nelson performs the previously unreleased “Midnight Run” on the movie’s soundtrack and will appear at a special screening of the film on Aug. 25 at the Alamo Draft House in Austin, Texas. Lawless , which stars Tom Hardy , Jessica Chastain and Shia LaBeouf is based on a true story about the bootlegging Bondurant brothers. Avengers Assemble! In 2015, That Is Marvel’s Avengers 2 has an official release date of May 1, 2015. Joss Whedon is set to direct and write the sequel, which will follow Iron Man 3 , Thor 2 , Captain America 2 and Guardians of the Galaxy . Deadline reports. Speaking of Iron Man 3, Production Delayed After Downey Injures Ankle Production was suspended briefly on the set of Iron Man 3 when the film’s leading man Robert Downey Jr. injured his ankle. Deadline reports . Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
What’s steeplechase exactly? We’re not sure. (Wikipedia says it’s some sort of obstacle race–whatever.) With all that women’s water polo and beach volleyball to watch, we missed that one during the London Olympics. Regardless, we applaud Colombian steeplechase racer Angela Figueroa , who made up for her lackluster performance at the 2012 Games by raising some steeples of her own in a nude photo shoot for SoHo Magazine . We must say, it’s very considerate of Angela to promote aerobic fitness this way. Our pulses are certainly pounding right now… See more nudes of Olympic steeplechase racer Angela Figueroa after the jump!
To even describe The Expendables 2 as a movie seems to do both the medium and this strange, smirking effort a disservice. It isn’t a movie — it’s more like the world’s most expensive, elaborate viral video, making a detour to the big screen before being broken up into more easily consumable segments to be consumed on YouTube. 2010’s The Expendables , directed by its star Sylvester Stallone , was built around the meta-joke of its cast being a who’s who of past and current action stars, particularly ones associated with the more iconic of ’80s muscle movies. But it also had characters with rough personality designations, it had settings and a plot that actually crescendoed toward its violent conclusion. Helmed by Con Air ‘s Simon West, The Expendables 2 has none of these things. Instead, what it has is Chuck Norris making a cameo as a character named Booker (a hat tip to Good Guys Wear Black ) to shoot a few dudes and then recount a Chuck Norris fact (it involves a king cobra). It has Arnold Schwarzenegger, who also briefly appeared in the first film, showing up to joke about being back and terminating people, and ending a bickering session with Bruce Willis by muttering “Yippee-ki-yay.” Whatever throwback charm the first film had has been utterly Snakes on a Plane -d by this sequel, which from the start is far more pleased with itself than audience members are ever given a chance to be. So Stallone is back as Barney Ross, leader of the mercenary group of the title, who’ve become (with one key exception) hammily invincible in the time since the last film ended. Along with his bantering best bud Lee Christmas ( Jason Statham ), Ross heads his team up on a mission to rescue a Chinese billionaire in the opening scene, a sequence that turns into an orgy of automatic weapon fire, armored vehicles smashing through walls and a chase that eventual takes to the water, no element of which sustains even the illusion of putting the preening main characters in harm’s way. If you’ve been in the game this long, it seems, you no longer need to even pretend you could get shot by those extras gamely firing blanks. Dolph Lundgren is still on board as Gunner Jensen, gone from turncoat to comic relief, while Jet Li has a fight scene or two before making a shrug of an exit. Terry Crews and Randy Couture are given little to do other than flex their biceps and fill in the background in this iteration. And Liam Hemsworth shows up as the new team sniper, whose place as “the kid” in a film that’s all about decidedly grown (and slightly creaky) men suggests he’s in a position of peril even before he ends up taking one last gig before retiring to start a new life with his girl. The Expendables are given a mission by Willis’ CIA agent Mr. Church, and head off to retrieve a valuable object from a downed plane at the direction of token female Maggie (Yu Nan), a motorcycle-riding Chinese agent who charms Ross with her ability to efficiently torture information out of informants. When the plan goes awry, Ross and company set out for revenge, targeting a swaggering villain who’s actually named Vilain, and who’s played by a scene-chewing Jean-Claude Van Damme in sunglasses, a duster and a Satanic neck tattoo. In an age of overabundance of CGI, in which neither physical presence nor prowess is required to take the lead in an action film, the appeal of something like The Expendables is clear. Stallone and his buddies aren’t just waving the banner of nostalgia, they’re a stand-in for practical effects and martial arts training, for being able to hold the camera with bulk and charisma (if not necessarily acting range) while delivery cheesy one-liners with a dearth of irony. They represent an outmoded form of the blockbuster, one that’s become replaced by something even more slick, calculated and forgettable — consider the new Total Recall versus the feature on which it was based, the remake a film in which everything is possible and yet nothing seems to matter. The longing for more tangible entertainments is what makes The Expendables 2 feel so damnably lazy — it trades on the quirk of being able to assemble cast-members who’ve devalued enough over the years to become affordable in a single movie, and then barely bothers to actually make that movie. It’s not a joyless effort, but it’s one in which (with the exception of the always admirably present Statham) most of the joy feels self-directed — just a group of guys pounding each other on the back between takes and reassuring themselves that they’ve still got it. Maybe they do, but there’s little evidence of the fact on screen here, in this smug attempt to power a franchise on novelty value alone. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
According to a new report in The National Enquirer , the parents of Honey Boo Boo aren’t just groan-worthy reality stars. There was a time when they were considered law-breaking child abusers. The tabloid claims that the Thompsons were visited by the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services in March, not long after a Toddler & Tiaras clip (below) aired of June Thompson giving her child “Go Go Juice” and roadkill for dinner.
Mitt Romney Chooses Wisconsin Congressman Paul Ryan As Vice Presidential Running Mate Moneymakin’ Mitt has made his choice for VP running mate and it’s 42-year-old, seven term Congressman from Wisconsin, Paul Ryan: With the political world watching, Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney misspoke while introducing his running mate. Romney mistakenly introduced Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan on Saturday as the next president of the United States. Ryan, of course, has been tapped to serve as Romney’s vice presidential nominee. A sheepish Romney puts arms around Ryan and clarified his mistake before Ryan took the microphone. Romney says that he makes a mistake every once in a while. But he says he didn’t make a mistake with his selection of Ryan The ticket made its debut at a naval museum in Norfolk, Va., the initial stop of a bus tour through four battleground states in as many days. The USS Wisconsin, berthed at the museum, was their bunting-draped backdrop, a symbol of the nation’s military strength as well as an obvious reference to Ryan’s home state. First Romney, then Ryan, a generation younger than his patron, jogged down the ship’s gangplank to the cheers of hundreds and the stirring soundtrack from the movie “Air Force One.” As his family came on stage, Ryan knelt to embrace his daughter and two sons before kissing his wife. While word of Ryan’s selection leaked late Friday night and was posted by the campaign to its phone app before the speeches, Obama’s campaign withheld its reaction until the Republicans had spoken. “The architect of the radical Republican House budget, Ryan, like Romney, proposed an additional $250,000 tax cut for millionaires, and deep cuts in education from Head Start to college aid,” Jim Messina, the president’s campaign manager, said in a written statement. “His plan would also end Medicare as we know it by turning it into a voucher system, shifting thousands of dollars in health care costs to seniors,” he said Here’s more about Ryan and his policies: At 42, Ryan is a more than two decades younger than the 65-year-old Romney. His conservative credentials are highly regarded by fellow Republican House members, while numerous polls during the primaries of winter and spring found that Romney’s credentials were suspect among the party’s core supporters. A seven-term congressman, Ryan is chairman of the House Budget Committee, and primary author of conservative tax and spending blueprints that the tea party-infused Republican majority approved over vociferous Democratic opposition in 2011 and again in 2012. They envision transforming Medicare into a program in which future seniors would receive government checks that they could use to purchase health insurance. Under the current program, the government directly pays doctors, hospitals and other health care providers. Ryan and other supporters say the change is needed to prevent the program from financial calamity. Critics argue it would impose ever-increasing costs on seniors. Other elements of the budget plan would cut projected spending for Medicaid, which provides health care for the poor, as well as food stamps, student loans and other social programs that Obama and Democrats have pledged to defend. Do you think this “middle class” guy from “Wisconsin” can help old Money Mitt out??? Source Source 2 AP Images
Kristen Stewart has been in the news a lot lately, but less so for her movies. But the latest international trailer for On the Road is out, so perhaps a small diversion is due. The film is the first real attempt to bring Jack Kerouac’s legendary novel of the same title to screen, over 30 years after Francis Ford Coppola bought the rights to the book. Walter Salles directs the film, which had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival in May . On the Road stars Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, Kirsten Dunst and Sam Riley. The film features Riley (ControL) as Sal, who falls under the spell of the intoxicatingly charming Dean Moriarty (Hedlund), who himself chases around America for freedom and an elusive “It.” Standing in as surrogates for Kerouac and Beat poet Neal Cassady, respectively, Sal and Dean travel around the country indulging in drink, drugs, sex, fast driving and the whims of youth hellbent on not conforming to post-WWII America. “I like pushing and watching a genuine experience on screen,” Stewart said in Cannes. “The reason I wanted to do the job was to be provoked as much as possible and then to do it and take it further. We were just going forth, and as long as you’re being honest there’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
Yes, there is a triple-breasted hooker in Len Wiseman’s Total Recall remake. If you happened to have missed the news posts and Comic-Con appearances (it was a lot of publicity for a three-line role), please rest assured that a futuristic working girl does indeed flaunt her unusually augmented bosom for Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell), just as in the Arnold Schwarzenegger original. It’s one of the few callbacks to the hallucinatory nature of Paul Verhoeven’s wild-eyed, schlocky, terribly fun 1990 blockbuster, few other qualities of which this redo shares. The two films have the same underlying bone structure, sure, but this new Total Recall is made of more serious, more humorless stuff. It looks simultaneously lavish and interchangeable in its explosions and shoot-em-ups with a dozen other recent action movies, and in its sci-fi stylings with a dozen others in the genre. Instead of Earth and Mars, this Total Recall world is split between the United Federation of Britain and the country formerly known as Australia, now called the Colony. (Reportedly the two were originally Euroamerica and New Shanghai, but in the spirit of the rest of the film any potential political commentary seems to have been neutered.) Most of the world has been rendered uninhabitable by warfare, and the remaining population clusters in and threatens to overrun these two cities, which are joined by a giant transportation device that travels through the center of the Earth and is called The Fall. The Fall, half space shuttle and half commuter rail, is the film’s most interesting idea, uniting the oppressive UFB and its head of state Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) with the have-nots in the Colony — as many of the latter, including our hero, travel to the more industrialized nation each morning to serve as cheap labor. Quaid shares an all-concrete studio in the Colony with his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale), who like him heads out via The Fall to work every day. She’s in emergency services, he’s at a factory that makes the synthetic soldiers that serve as the UFB’s army. Quaid’s been having recurring dreams of a woman (Jessica Biel) trying to rescue him from a scientific facility. Exhausted by the grind of his day-to-day life, entranced by these nighttime visions in which, as he says, it “feels like I’m doing something important,” he stops by Rekall, a service that implants artificial memories of adventures that are practically like having done the real thing. He asks to be given the experiences of being a secret agent, which doesn’t go so well, because he may have actually been a spy in a past that’s been wiped from his mind. This Total Recall does away with the wonderfully queasy ambiguity of the 1990 film, in which we’re never sure if Quaid is a badass involved in a rebel conspiracy to decide the fate of the world or if he’s just a regular schmuck who’s become too fond of and given himself over to the illusion he purchased for himself as a bit of escapism. We never really doubt that Farrell’s Quaid/double-agent Hauser is experiencing a legit reality even when another character tries to convince him otherwise — there’s no sense, even when the trouble begins, that what happened at Rekall was anything but what we saw on screen, complete with an explanation for why the treatment might have triggered buried memories. It’s a shame, because that aspect of the first film allowed it to follow a typical movie arc while also carrying a pointed critique of it — how appealing, to learn you’ve actually always been one of the most important people in the world, that everything depends on you! Who wouldn’t find that more seductive than just being another working stiff filed away in a giant apartment block, even if choosing to believe it meant possibly abandoning the real world and demonizing your wife at the same time? As that wife, Beckinsale’s entertainingly indestructible and glowery, striding like a Terminator with an immaculate blowout down countless hallways while wielding a gun, and chasing Quaid over rooftops and along balconies after her cover as an enemy agent is blown (“I give good wife,” she sneers). Farrell and Biel are perfectly serviceable in uninspiring roles, while Cranston tries gamely to look like he could be the equal of Farrell in a brawl and Bill Nighy appears briefly as rebellion leader Matthias. The film flickers from fight scene to chase scene and back again, rarely pausing after the introduction for a quiet moment. Wiseman’s an adequate director of action, but only one or two of these sequences rise out from the ruckus of automatic machine fire — the standout involves The Fall and how gravity on the transport shifts when it passes through the Earth’s core. And while the sets and art direction are striking, with their multi-tiered urban landscapes, they also look familiar. The UFB is just a sleek, Minority Report future intent on taking advantage of the messily (and more Asian) Blade Runner esque future of the Colony. The synthetics are Star Wars battle droids by way of Tron . The floating car chase is awfully Fifth Element. This is a less cartoonish sci-fi vision, but to what end? The twists and turns of this convoluted tale of a guy who was bad but who may be able to reinvent himself as a better person thanks to having his brain scrubbed is fundamentally goofy, and it takes place in world that swarms with people but that only seems to have a handful of actual characters (when an important, dangerous attack takes place, Cohaagen of course heads it up in person, the way all world leaders do). These are elements that make sense when there’s a fair possibility the story might be all the protagonist’s indulgent delusion, but seem clumsy without it. Total Recall is an indifferent mean of whiling away two hours of your summer — but at least, unlike Quaid, you’ll be in no danger of getting lost in it. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
My name is Hayley (19) and I met Justin on the 19th of June in New Zealand . My friends woke up early in the morning and made our way to his hotel at 8am. There was about 50 girls already there even though it was a school day. As we waited, sang and chanted, more and more girls, media and paparazzi began to show up. It had been hours yet Justin hadn’t even at least waved from his hotel window. We kept chanting until our throats were sore. At about 3pm a dark van parked putside the entrance and soon a big police van showed up too. Security starting pushing everyone behind the barriers. He was coming out soon they said! Everyone was pushing each other to get to the front of the barriers, and we were all so anxious and excited. People began jumping the barriers and everyone was crowding around the van, while security tried to move everyone back. No one would budge. It seemed the hotel didn’t have enough security to handle the huge crowd of 250+ people. The van started to leave so a group of 20 of us chased after it thinking it must be picking up Justin at the back entrance now. As it pulled up I saw Allison, Dan and Scrappy get into the van. I said Hi and they chatted with us for a little bit. Then the van left. Apparently Justin had snuck out a side entrance with Selena. I felt so disappointed, I could cry. All I wanted was to see him, just once. Me and my friends made our way to Starship Hospital because we’d heard he was visiting sick children there. We didn’t know if it was true but took a chance. We saw a big van, the same as the one earlier parked around the back, and we were sure it was his. Some other girls we met said him and Selena had just went in. I couldn’t believe it. I was screaming/crying/dying on the inside. There was a small group of 20 fans when Justin finally came out, Selena in hand. I saw Alfredo, Moshe and Kenny too! Everyone stayed calm and called out to them. We didn’t wanna scream and cry, we tried to stay very calm so he would come over. He did even though he was late for his concert! He was so nice, and took photos with as many people as he could. He took my camera and took a photo of us. HE TOUCHED MY CAMERA! I held his hand for a good minute before he left too, and told him I loved him. My friend Chris was also lucky enough to get a photo with him . No words can describe how I felt after that. It still feels like a dream. I never EVER thought I’d meet Justin but Never say Never! My dreams came true. Thank you Justin. Here is the original post: My name is Hayley (19) and I met Justin on the 19th of June in…
My name is Francesca, I’m 15 and I’m from Italy. Justin means everything to me. It was on 2th June 2012 when I met him. At the beginning of the day, it wasn’t a great one for me. I hadn’t won to see Justin or the M&G. I hadn’t won to see him perform live, I hadn’t won anything! I didn’t loose hope and I travelled from Rome to Milan to find him. I was so sure I’d never seen him, it was really sad. In the afternoon, I decided to try, anyway. I went outside his hotel and waited about two or three hours with many others Beliebers. There was a moment when I thought, “He’ll never come out. Never. It’s been like three hours that I’ve been here, nobody is coming out!” But then he actually came out! I was like “Oh my God, I cannot believe this. It’s Justin Drew Bieber, he is in front of me!” I was so excited and so scared at the same time, too many emotions, I just couldn’t help myself. Justin was so kind with EVERYONE of us, I swear. He was so happy to see us waiting hours for him. He was absolutely amazing. He was an angel, his smile was so contagious and so beautiful. Not only did he make my day, he made my life. When he looked at me, I was like “This is not possible.” He smiled and said to me, “Come here,” and we took a photo. THE IMPOSSIBLE CAME TRUE! Never say never, right? Thank you Justin, I will now fight for my dreams, I never give up in my life. I believe in every word he says, I believe in every step he takes. I hope one day he’ll read this, I’d be the happiest girl in the world seriously. See the original post here: My name is Francesca, I’m 15 and I’m from Italy. Justin…
My names Georgia and this is My Bieber Experience from New Zealand . I was with my sister and we were actually going to see the Dark Knight (only because I missed winning tickets to Justin’s show). We decided to take a drive by of The Cloud (where his private concert was) and then we saw this swarm of Beliebers running in the other direction. I was like OMG why are they running? Then we see like 2 huge blacked out Mercedes vans and a little mob of cars driving in a line behind. I was like, “That’s Justin F**king Bieber” (followed by a whole lot of inappropriate words). We followed them all the way to like the other end and then we predicted he would come out a specific exit and he did! Then the chase was on and like other beliebers were in their cars following the 2 vans and 2 cars. We thought they may go to the Langham but he had to eat so we kept on following them . They noticed us so decoy cars went in all opposite directions. The other beliebers went and followed the other cars but we decided to stay with the huge van (which then also tried to lose us/ was switching lanes etc.) We ended up loosing them but then my sister predicted another street and sure enough, it was there! Then it randomly stopped in this dark part of the street so we waited and watched the van for like an hour. Then the guy pulled out of the street and went to the dairy; he was like a security guard so I hopped out of the car and went in the dairy as well. He was like looking at me looking like, “WTF GO AWAY” and scanning me up and down (what a creep) and then my sister was like, “No ones in the van.” I was guttered but we waited a bit and watched the van. We went back down the street thinking we just got decoyed away but then we see TWO HUGE BODY GUARDS outside a Japanese restaurant called Cocoro . It was either the Japanese Mafia or Justin. I rang the restaurant and asked if I could make a reservation and they said, “NO SORRY WE’RE FULLY BOOKED.” I then asked if I could order a takeaway. Then the Asian guy was hesitant and said, “Ahhhh sorry, no takeaway tonight.” We clicked that Justin was there! We waited and waited (longest dinner ever) and then Alfredo came out for some air. Kenny came out and shook a person’s hand. We were still hiding in the car because no one was allowed in the restaurant. Finally the same grey van we had followed from the beginning came back! Selena came out and then came Justin! I almost fainted, I was shaking. He flicked his hair and I was like can I have a picture and he said, “Sure you can!” and was so lovely . It was blurry so he was like, “Hang on take another one” and took the iPhone out of my hand and took a picture of us! He was about to leave and I was like, “Justin can I touch your hand?” (LOL I couldn’t think of anything) He like laughed and then gave me a HUGE HUG and he smelt SO GOOD!! After he left, Kenny and Alfredo came out. Kenny and I had a great chat. At first I was like, “Omg I love you Kenny!” and he was like, “Wait, wait what’s your name?” I was like, “Georgia” and he said, “Nice to meet you, I’m Kenny.” I DIED. After I took a picture with Dan, he was like “Wait I have something for you” and handed me his pick! Pretty much I was on cloud 9 and died because it was amazing. No one else found them except my sister, her friend and me! View post: My names Georgia and this is My Bieber Experience from New…
