‘Modern Family,’ ‘Homeland’ and ‘Game Change’ win big at 64th annual ceremony. By Amy Wilkinson The cast and crew of “Modern Family” accept an Emmy for Best Comedy Photo: WireImage
Tonight the stars come out in Los Angeles as the best and brightest on the boob tube assemble for the 64th Annual Primetime Emmy Awards . As usual, HBO leads the pack in nominations, blinding the Academy with boobage (and quality writing, acting and production values, but whatever) for a stunning 81 nominations including 15 for their original movie Hemingway & Gellhorn , 12 for Boardwalk Empire , 11 for Game of Thrones , and 5 for Girls . This year’s nudest nominees are also HBO players: Nicole Kidman is nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Mini Series or Movie for her nude role in Hemingway & Gellhorn , and Lena Dunham , is was nominated for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy, Outstanding Directing, and Outstanding Writing for Girls . Congratulations to all of our lovely nomi-nudes! We’ll be rubbing our lucky rabbit’s foot for you tonight! See past Emmy winners like Kate Winslet , Kyra Sedgwick , Patricia Arquette and Gillian Anderson nude right here at MrSkin.com
Cinema connoisseurs of two kinds are in luck this week: Panos Cosmatos’s acid-trip of an arthouse thriller Beyond The Black Rainbow hits shelves as Movieline’s highbrow pick of the week, while the comedy classic Airplane! gets the Blu-ray treatment. Surely you can’t resist? HIGH: Beyond the Black Rainbow (Magnolia Home Entertainment; $26.98 DVD, $29.98 Blu-Ray) Who’s Responsible: Written and directed by Panos Cosmatos; starring Michael Rogers, Eva Allan, Scott Hylands. What It’s All About: A young woman (Allan) in 1983 undergoes “therapy” at the mysterious Arboria Institute, although any outside observer would be forgiven for thinking that she’s being mentally tortured by the twitchy and nefarious Dr. Barry Nyle (Rogers). Can she escape? Will her obsessive tormentor allow her to elude his clutches? Why It’s Schmancy: The word “trippy” just scratches the surface of the gorgeous psychedelic freak-out that’s been crafted here by first-time filmmaker Cosmatos. (His father, director George Pan Cosmatos, was the man behind more decidedly mainstream fare like Rambo: First Blood , Part Two and Tombstone .) Beyond the Black Rainbow pays homage to those ’70s thrillers in which dastardly things were happening behind the seemingly sterile walls of coolly impenetrable high-tech companies ( Colossus: The Forbin Project , Parts: The Clonus Horror , Coma , et. al.) with chilly aplomb; Cosmatos gets the period exactly right, from the hypnotically droning and heavily synth-y soundtrack by Jeremy Schmidt to Dr. Nyle’s black-turtleneck-under-tweed-blazer ensemble. The pace is slow, but the wonderfully weird payoffs are worth it. Why You Should Buy It: While a director commentary from Cosmatos would no doubt be illuminating, the auteur apparently prefers to let the work speak for itself; the only extras are the theatrical trailer and some deleted special effects footage where you get to watch a head melt. (Not a bad metaphor for how many audiences will respond to the film.) LOW: Airplane! (Paramount Home Entertainment; $22.98 Blu-Ray) Who’s Responsible: Written and directed by David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker; starring Robert Hays, Julie Hagerty, Leslie Nielsen, Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges, Peter Graves. What It’s All About: This frenetic and outrageous satire of disaster movies in general (and 1957’s Zero Hour in particular) features shell-shocked war veteran Ted Striker (Hays) pursuing his stewardess girlfriend Elaine (Hagerty) on a flight from Chicago to Los Angeles; when food poisoning strikes the crew, Ted is the only hope of safely landing the plane, with a little help from a doctor (Nielsen), a jittery airport manager (Bridges) and Ted’s former commanding officer (Stack). Why It’s Fun: Many have tried but few have succeeded in copying the machine-gun-fire barrage of visual gags, puns, reference jokes and flat-out anarchic weirdness that have made this spoof one of the great American comedies of all time. It may be silly and sophomoric, but Airplane! is a miracle of pacing, with more laughs per minute than maybe any feature film ever made. Generations of new audiences unfamiliar with the 1970s disaster epics being parodied here still embrace this movie for its timelessly wacky pleasures. If nothing else, this movie may have succeeded at removing the word “surely” from serious conversation. Why You Should Buy It (Again): The extras — a feature-length commentary, pop-up trivia, and a “Long Haul” version of the film that allows viewers to click on icons to look at deleted scenes and interviews — will be familiar to anyone who purchased the previous “Don’t Call Me Shirley” edition. But Airplane! has never looked or sounded as sharp as it does on this Blu-Ray release (previously a Best Buy exclusive, now on sale everywhere). Previously: High And Low: Slapstick Savant Buster Keaton And (Surprise!) Horror Huckster William Castle Bring The Funny Follow Alonso Duralde on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Forget the fashion and the performances for a moment. Let’s focus on the comedy. Or lackthereof? Kevin Hart took on hosting duties at the 2012 MTV Video Music Awards last night, opening the event with a monologue that tackled… … the Drake vs. Chris Brown bar brawl (On why Drake allegedly threw a bottle: “Drake is from Canada. He loves to recycle…”). … Snooki’s son, Lorenzo Dominic (On having a baby “in her oven” and why the Jersey Shore star can handle it: Because she’s “been cooking [her] skin for a while.”). … the Kristen Stewart affair with Rupert Sanders (“Look, we’ve got Sleepy, Grumpy, Adultery…”). So, how did Hart do? Grade his performance as host now:
Worlds collide in the raunchy comedy For A Good Time, Call… , the sweet and salty tale of two reluctant roommates ( Ari Graynor and Lauren Anne Miller) tentatively building a friendship as they embark on a phone sex business venture together. It’s a long-awaited starring vehicle for Graynor and Miller and a warmly funny offering in the current wave of raunchy R-rated female-driven comedies – and For A Good Time, Call… also marks the anticipated debut of shorts filmmaker Jamie Travis ( The Patterns Trilogy , The Saddest Boy in the World ), who here earns the distinction of inspiring Justin Long ‘s performance in the film and getting to direct Kevin Smith jerking off in his feature debut. All of the above may surprise those who’ve followed Travis’s work over the past decade, during which time the Toronto-based filmmaker burst onto the film festival scene with award-winning, impeccably-crafted short films (highly recommended and viewable here ) that dealt effectively in nostalgic sensibilities, a Wes Anderson-like mise en scene, and a stylistic formalism largely absent from his fast-talking lady comedy. But after years of searching for the right project, Travis fell for the script by real life friends Miller and Katie Anne Naylon and subsequently launched into his first feature on an incredibly packed 16-day shooting schedule. After premiering at Sundance and debuting in limited release this weekend, For a Good Time, Call… expands to additional cities on September 7. “I honestly don’t know how to direct a movie unless I love it,” Travis offered, looking back on the film. “I feel like that love needs to drive you, and without it what are you doing?” I fell in love with your Patterns trilogy and your short films, so when I heard that you were directing For A Good Time, Call… I was very intrigued — I’d been wondering when we’d see a feature from you. You must have been surprised that I was making what people will refer to as a “phone sex comedy!” It definitely wasn’t the kind of film I thought I was going to direct. I thought of myself as directing something I wrote myself because all of my short films, including the Patterns trilogy, are written from a personal place. So it was a great surprise when I read the script. Knowing it was a phone sex comedy, I didn’t know what to think. I was so pleasantly surprised by how sweet it is, and how it shows female friendship in a way I don’t think enough movies show. It took a vehicle like phone sex and hung female friendship on it in such a grounded way. I just loved it, so I couldn’t say no! You must have been reading a lot of scripts over the years. Yeah – I had been reading so many scripts, and had gotten a lot of interest from American agents and eventually signed with WME, all from my films being at the Toronto Film Festival and Sundance. And I found that in particular it was The Saddest Boy in the World that people could see how I could kind of go in a commercial direction from that. The Patterns Trilogy is pretty out there; I feel like that’s for a very specific kind of audience, which apparently is you, Jen Yamato. It is! But it’s funny, I had been reading scripts for five or six years and hadn’t taken a meeting on anything. There was nothing I was interested in, I was growing increasingly skeptical that I was ever going to direct someone else’s script, and then I read this one and fell in love with it. It was just so funny to me, it bounced off the page in a way that I hadn’t experienced reading other people’s scripts. I immediately knew that I was the right person to direct it. I felt like I got it, and I also could see a really bad version of the movie in the hands of the wrong person who didn’t really get it, and I felt like I got it. I immediately connected it to these great ‘80s movies with Bette Midler and Goldie Hawn — Outrageous Fortune is a particular favorite of mine — and I loved that there’s a fine line of groundedness and also camp, a full-on female spirit. There’s a tricky tone to nail here. It’s a very sweet story about friendship between women, but it’s also raunchy, and that so much better reflects what real women are like than historically most movies about or for women have been. I mainly spend my time with girls — or more correctly, women — and my girlfriends talk dirty! They are brutally honest. And you’re right, I never see that in movies in a way that feels authentic to me. This script was written by two best friends, Lauren Miller and Katie Naylon, and they put so much of themselves into this script. You could really feel that, and it informed the whole project that it was loosely based on their real relationship. There’s this great quote from you, where the story goes that as you were lobbying for the directing job, you told Katie and Lauren, “You cannot let a straight man direct this movie.” [Laughs] I mean, certainly there are other people who could have directed this movie, I’m sure. But I did feel that as a gay man, and I don’t want to speak for all gay men, I have a certain reverence for women that is completely uncomplicated by sexuality or sexual tension. And I felt like that’s the spirit the film needed. It’s funny, because all the girls in this film — Ari, Lauren, and Katie, the writer — they all have their gay BFFs, and I felt like that perspective of reverence for women and for the kind of truthful aspects of female relationships — and I feel like I really get female relationships — I feel like a lot of that access comes because I am a gay man. You’re right — watching the film, I realized how so many of these scenes of phone sex or even just Katie and Lauren becoming close could easily have gone in another direction. That was my fear. This whole film was kind of a high wire act in tone. How do we have fun and keep it funny and keep it light and raunchy, but also find a way to keep the focus on the friendship between the girls? When I read the script I could see that someone, maybe a straight man, could read it in a whole other way, and could aim to titillate the audience or objectify the girls in their phone sex calls, and I hated that version of the movie in my mind. So I think I used this whole “a gay man must direct this movie” as a bit of a ploy to get the job, but at the same time it was my way of saying you guys have a sensitive tone here, and it would be very easy for it to go off the grid. But I’m sure there are many straight men out there who have great insight into female relationships. For me, it’s something I see among the gay men that I know; we just love women in a way that’s really uncomplicated. Speaking of which, I love the story of how Justin Long “found” his character. He plays Katie and Lauren’s mutual best friend, and after a conversation with you he decided he’d like to model the character on… you. How did you feel about that? Are you kidding me, I felt great about it! I basically wanted that, deep down in my subconscious mind. When that was the direction he wanted to take it in, I was very pleased. We had been talking about how to keep the character away from the stereotypical gay character that we see, and for me the most important part was not sexualizing the character as the lascivious gay man who’s chasing tail — because I’ve never been that guy, and those are not the gay men that I’m attracted to as friends or otherwise. I like the wholesomeness of [the character] — he has his own thing, he’s a budding comedian, and his real thrust in the film is trying to get his two best friends to be friends, which is a very human impulse to me. I remember we were having our first phone conversation and we were talking about the character and he might have mentioned hair extensions at one point and I was like, “Oh my God dear, no!” I think as soon as I responded to whatever he said about hair extensions he caught onto my voice and told me he liked the quality of my voice. And from then on he was following me around on set on the first day kind of mimicking my physical behavior, which was a little uncomfortable but I was also so busy making the film in the scenes that he was not in that I didn’t have enough time to feel terribly weird. But I think deep down in my subconscious it was very healthy for my ego. [Laughs] When you watch Justin’s scenes, do you recognize something familiar? It’s funny because I do see some of myself onscreen in him, and how could you not like that as a director? That calls to mind another tidbit about the production, which is that you shot it on an insanely fast schedule — something like 16 days? I know! It’s crazy. It was 16 days. My first short film, Why the Anderson Children Didn’t Come To Dinner , is on Vimeo, and that was a 16 minute film that I shot in 16 days. So here I am shooting a 90-minute feature in 16 days – I have never worked that quickly, but you do what you need to do to tell the story. I knew that my usual style of filmmaking, which is very visual and the directorial voice is very present — I knew that I couldn’t just plunk my so-called trademark aesthetic on this movie. It had to be looser, and the strength of the movie was going to be on the performances and the comedy so we had to take a really simplified style to it because otherwise we wouldn’t have a movie! You may notice there aren’t so many wide shots in the movie, and that’s because when you have a scene between two people and you have 20 minutes to shoot it, the close-ups, in a comedy like this where it’s all about engaging the audience with the characters, are important. So there were a lot of sacrifices made to make this film in 16 days, but at the same time the 16-day schedule forced us to have this indie spirit. We were making this film which, based on its synopsis, is really a commercial comedy but it was made in a very indie way and I think that informs our approach and our spirit. I see that everyone was loving what they were doing in this film and I think that’s important. That separates it from the average studio comedy. Has it been tempting to make a feature that is more in the voice of your short films, the style that had become your signature? The thing is, I’m also bored with my own voice! I’m still doing what I love and what feels natural to me, and I do see a lot of my voice in For A Good Time, Call… — but every project is different. For example, there’s a project that I’m in love with right now where there’s a lot of room for my voice and it is kind of a perfect balance between a formal, stylized world and we’re inside the head of a really interesting, very special teenage character. Is it tempting to do something like I’ve done in the past? I feel like I want to meet in the middle. I want to write it myself, and writing is the hardest and most emotional part of the process for me. I’ve really found a comfortable nook in directing; my confidence has really grown and if I love a project and know how I want to execute it, it feels very natural to me. So I’m not at a point where I want to write right now. I’m getting a lot of opportunities, reading really great scripts, and had such a good experience working with collaborators so I’m following that path. But on the other hand I would never choose a project for money or do a completely broad studio comedy. If it doesn’t engage me on the page, I don’t consider it. And I don’t really consider what I do a job; I’m able to make a living in commercials and I love making commercials, and it enables me to not have to make my filmmaking decisions based on money. Five years from now I’ll probably be directing Mission to Mars 5 or something and maybe we’ll talk again, but I don’t think that’s going to happen. [Laughs] I honestly don’t know how to direct a movie unless I love it. I feel like that love needs to drive you, and without it what are you doing? That said, Jamie Travis’s Mission to Mars 5 would be the most beautiful installment of the franchise. [Laughs] That’s the thing — I do get to jump outside my own style in commercials, and if I got a 30-second commercial that was Mission to Mars -esque I would take it on and be so excited about it. But films are different; you put yourself into it so much, and I think there are only so many film projects that a director can make in their life. You have to be careful about your decisions. After Sundance, there were opportunities for sex comedies and it was like, well, hold on — I’m not a sex comedy director. I’m just a director. And while I see myself directing horror films or comedies or thrillers in the future, I really do love the idea of exploring different genres, it’s all about the first experience of reading the script. If it’s not the equivalent of reading a piece of literature, I’m not even going to consider it. It’s fun, as a longtime Jamie Travis fan, to see your world and the raunchy Judd Apatowian R-rated comedy world collide as it does particularly in your cameos. The cameos were a combination of our amazing casting directors in LA and our personal relationships. Obviously we got Seth because he is Lauren’s husband, and Kevin has a relationship with Lauren and Seth. To give you a sense, when I first came down to LA I was living with Lauren and Seth. This was a low-budget movie — I was the house guest who wouldn’t leave, so there was a real spirit there of everyone helping each other out and figuring out this movie. What was it like, in your big first feature, to direct Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen jerking off? Everyone was jerking off in this movie! Working with Seth was amazing — the cameos in particular were very much improvised. A lot of this movie, because we shot in 16 days, is not as improvised as you’d think. But the cameos were very much so. Seth is a brilliant comedic actor and you never know what he’s going to say. He always says something better than you could possibly imagine and takes it to places you didn’t see it going. And Kevin Smith, he came to set for I think three hours one day — we sat him down in the car and Ari was in the back seat saying her lines and I was talking to him through a walkie. What notes do you possibly give Kevin Smith as he’s, shall we say, in flagrante? He just invented it on the spot! In those situations where you’re working with comedic minds like that, it’s more like taking the elements of what they said and trying to refine it or combine the great thing they said here with the great thing they said there. But really with them and Ken Marino and Martha MacIsaac, it’s really about letting them go and shooting and shooting. That’s what we did, and it worked out for us. For A Good Time, Call… is in limited release. Watch Jamie Travis’s Patterns 3 , via Vimeo: Patterns 3 from Jamie Travis on Vimeo . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
This was sent to me today…and exclusive some of you fags can jerk off to…it is of Will Farrell back in college, before he was famous, or in Old School, or the seasoned veteran on SNL, unable to make it in the real world, before really fucking making it in the real world, and he’s wearing his fucking panties with another dude, something you fan boys can get off to and tell yourself it’s not gay, cuz it’s just a picture and you’re just a huge fan, and this just happens to be open on your screen, and that you’re actually jerking off to something you saw yesterday that you’re thinking about….and this younger, slimmer, fitter Will Farrell half naked has absolutely nothing to do with your erection, you just think his comedy is genius…and if that’s considered gay….so be it….kind of thing…..
Her surprise AND OH WHAT A SURPRISE IT WAS, she has been bugging for months about these tickets! http://www.youtube.com/v/Jg5CDua2bGo?version=3&f=videos&app=youtube_gdata Read the original here: Daughter gets justin bieber tickets for her 18th b day part. 1
This week’s DVD releases encompass everything from the sublime — Richard Linklater’s Bernie , one of the best films of the year so far (Millennium Entertainment; $29.99 Blu-Ray, $28.99 DVD) — to the ridiculous — the DVD debut of the 1980s T&A epic Joysticks (Scorpion Releasing; $19.95 DVD). For my tastes, however, the highlights include a subtle but powerful British romance along with some animated Disney faves that are available for the first time on Blu-ray. HIGH: Weekend (The Criterion Collection; Blu-ray $39.95; DVD $29.95) Who’s Responsible: Written and directed by Andrew Haigh; starring Tom Cullen and Chris New. What It’s All About: Soft-spoken lifeguard Russell (Cullen) and cynical artist Glen (New) hook up in a British gay bar, but what begins as a one-night stand unfolds over the course of the titular time span into something else entirely. As they spend time together, the two open up about their lives, let down their defenses and appear to be on the brink of falling in love. There’s just one problem: Glen is about to go to the United States for a two-year arts program. Why It’s Schmancy: Following its debut at South by Southwest in 2011, Weekend felt like a revelation, not only to gay audiences, who are always starving for fresh and intelligent — and sexy and romantic — examinations of their lives, but also to mainstream critics. The latter group recognized that, with only one previous feature to his credit, Haigh had turned out a poignant tale of love and missed opportunity that can stand alongside David Lean’s Brief Encounter and Linklater’s Before Sunrise and Before Sunset . Why You Should Buy It: Although there’s no commentary track, this release includes several illuminating documentaries, including one where Haigh explains the mechanics of the sex scenes. In another, scenes that the actors used to audition for their roles are compared to corresponding scenes in the the finished movie. There’s also a video essay on artists Quinnford + Scout, who shot stills and home movie footage on the set. Two of Haigh’s short films, Cahuenga Blvd. — which has some thematic parallels with Weekend — and Five Miles Out (starring Dakota Blue Richards of The Golden Compass ) are also included. Finally, there’s a fine Dennis Lim essay that contextualizes Weekend in contemporary queer cinema. LOW: The Rescuers: 35 th Anniversary Edition/The Rescuers Down Under (Walt Disney Home Entertainment; $39.99 Blu-Ray, $29.99 DVD) Who’s Responsible: Directed by John Lounsbery, Wolfgang Reitherman and Art Stevens ( Rescuers) ; Hendel Butoy and Mike Gabriel (Down Under). Both films star Bob Newhart and Eva Gabor. What It’s All About: A mouse organization known as the Rescue Aid Society operates alongside the United Nations to help abduction victims around the world. The glamorous Hungarian agent Miss Bianca (Gabor) enlists janitor Bernard (Newhart) to help her on her missions: In the 1977 original, they track down a young girl held captive in the Louisiana bayous by the treasure-seeking Madame Medusa (Geraldine Page). For the 1990 sequel, they head to the Australian outback to save a boy in the clutches of a vicious poacher (George C. Scott). Why It’s Fun: Based on the novels by Margery Sharp, both of these movies are cracking adventures for kids that possess enough sly wit to keep adults entertained as well. The original Rescuers was one of the few entertaining cartoon features to emerge from Disney’s bleak period between the death of Uncle Walt in 1966 and the resurrection of the studio’s legendary animation department with 1989’s The Little Mermaid . Also, as any fan of Green Acres knows, Gabor works best with a slow-burn straight man. Lucky for her — and us &mdash: Newhart ranks among the greatest comic foils. And speaking of Green Acres, character actor Pat Buttram, who played Mr. Haney on the comedy series, loans his distinctive voice to the first Rescuers . Why You Need to Buy It (Again): This release marks the Blu-Ray debut for both features, and both the Blu-Ray and DVD editions include a making-of for Down Under , an animated short ( Three Blind Musketeers ), a Disney True-Life Adventure ( Water Birds ), and a sing-along for the first film’s theme song, “Someone’s Waiting for You.” The Blu-Ray also includes a deleted tune, “Peoplitis.” Alonso Duralde has written about film for The Wrap , Salon and MSNBC.com. He also co-hosts the Linoleum Knife podcast and regularly appears on What The Flick?! (The Young Turks Network) . He is a senior programmer for the Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles and a pre-screener for the Sundance Film Festival. He also the author of two books: Have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas (Limelight Editions) and 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men (Advocate Books). Follow Alonso Duralde on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Former NFL linebacker-turned-actor (not to mention past and future President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho ) Terry Crews took a slightly different journey to action stardom than folks like Sly Stallone , Bruce Willis , Dolph Lundgren and Arnold Schwarzenegger ; his route carved a path through the comedy world, with turns in films including Friday After Next , White Chicks , and Balls of Fury . Cast as the bicep-flexing, quip-happy Hale Caesar in 2010’s The Expendables — a role he admits Wesley Snipes might have otherwise played if things had worked out differently — Crews more than earned his spot on the team, backed by Stallone’s vote of confidence: “He literally told me, ‘I’m going to make you an action star.’” Back alongside his brawny brethren in The Expendables 2 , Crews took time to share a few revelations about his Expendables experience with Movieline — starting with a surprisingly in-depth analysis of the art of delivering the perfect action movie one-liner. What is the secret to delivering the perfect one-liner in a movie like The Expendables 2 ? It’s funny because Sly, Bruce and Arnold kind of perfected it — and let me tell you a little thing that a lot of people don’t know. In the first Expendables there were a ton of monologues, and I mean monologues. Mon-o-logues. Everywhere! I remember I had a two-page monologue and spent about two months learning this whole thing, so did Randy [Couture], he had his own monologue — and we get on set and Sly’s like, “We can’t say any of this.” [Mimes crumpling paper.] I was like, “Ahhhh, the script is gone!” And you realize in an action movie, the one-liners are about necessity because you have to find a way to move the story without talking all the time. So those one little lines — “Hasta la vista, baby” — they’re cute, but they let you know and signal that we’re moving on to another part. So true! “I’ll be back” — the whole thing turns Terminator on its ear. And he did come back! Everybody had them. Those one-liners were so cool because they’re like chapter headings, you know what I mean? You realize, that’s what that is — you need that little thing to keep it the movie flowing but let people know with a signpost, this part is over and we’re starting a new section. And also to inform characters, especially when there are so many in an ensemble like this. Exactly. You need them just because you can’t say it in a monologue. You’ve got to hit it, hit it, hit it, quit it. And then let’s go. Nobody really wants to hear you talk all day. [Laughs] Do you remember what Hale Caesar’s original Expendables monologue was about? Oh, it was about social things in America, how the man in the hood in the ghetto… [Laughs] But after that it was, “Remember this shit, Christmas?” That’s all I had to say! There’s a scene in Expendables 2 where a rocket comes toward you and before diving out of the way you yell, “OH!” And there’s just something wonderfully perfect about that one “OH!” [Laughs] Well you know what, it makes things real! Because we don’t talk in monologues. You say, “What in the world?” It mimics real speech. Sly is a really great writer; I mean, he wrote Rocky . Did you improvise much? There wasn’t a lot of improvisation because he told us exactly how to go — there were times he’d say, “I want a bigger reaction!” Because he had a picture of it in his head. I learned to trust him all the way. You have to trust him. Sure, particularly when there were so many moving parts involved. You can’t improvise gigantic scenes that way, or somebody’s going to get hurt. You have to really stick with it and make what you planned the best it can be, and that doesn’t leave a lot of room for [improvisation]. I’ve done a lot of comedies and when you improv a lot, you say a great joke and the whole crew laughs. Well, you have to do that same scene maybe twenty times, so on the fourth time you say the same joke nobody laughs. What happens? The guy improvises. He makes people laugh again. But you can’t edit it. So you get to the other side and they can’t put it together, because you started changing your act in the middle of the thing to make everybody laugh. So, stop! [Laughs] I’ve been there with the comedians when you’re like, “No dude, say the line. I promise you it’s the first time in the theater that they’ll hear it!” Trust it. But comedians are trying to make the crew laugh. You had more comedy experience than many of your fellow Expendables — when did that came in handy the most? You lead a guy — I can lead a guy just by my expression, and it’s natural. You lead them instead of making it like, “Knock knoc.k” “Who’s there?” It’s all about the timing and the flow. Sly knows it perfectly. It sounds like this shoot was really quickly paced, with little margin for error with rewrites happening on set and having to get coverage of these big elaborate set pieces. It was huge. The biggest movie I’ve ever been involved with. I was looking at the script wondering, “How are they going to do it?” Especially if they couldn’t get certain cast members on jet skis… [Laughs] I know! Well, they did work it out — they just rigged it. You’ve got to have a bigger boat attached to the jet ski and you can get the shot. I like that they thought that they had all these seasoned action stars, of course they can just stick them on jet skis and let them do their thing. Look, let me tell you: One plus one is two. I knew how heavy I was and I felt that jet ski. And you wanted to put two more people on there? [Laughs] Jean-Claude Van Damme played the villain and said that on set he chose to be rude to everyone in order to stay in character, until the very end. Well, this is the thing. We had to have a little distance between him and us. There had to be. If we hung out with him, and he was our pal… it’s really hard to dig up that emotion when it’s time. Because first and foremost, we’re in Bulgaria — we don’t want to mess around. You don’t want to come back and hear, “You didn’t do your emotion right.” You can’t just, like, go down the street to reshoot a scene. Yeah — you’ve got a one-timer. We were like, look — Jean-Claude’s the villain. Let’s treat him like that. And there was a distance; we would shake hands, “Hey, how you doing?” but after that… With so many iconic action stars in this film and the previous one, I imagine you grew up watching some of these guys in their heyday. Who was the one you were most excited to rub elbows with? You do get to memorably drop a Terminator quote directly to Arnold… The first movie I ever did was The 6th Day — and what was weird was watching how much I’ve changed since then. I was nervous, I was scared, I didn’t know what I was doing. Then to go into our scene together here… he noticed how much I’ve grown. It’s such an honor. Because you do change; as long as you keep going, you can get better and better. It’s about effort. But the guy that I have enjoyed the most is Sly, because he hand-picked me for this. He literally told me, “I’m going to make you an action star.” Because I was kind of worried! You mentioned your role was initially meant for Wesley Snipes. Did that make it more nerve-wracking? Yeah! That’s the thing — there were four other choices before me that all fell through, and I was a little nervous. I was like, “Sly, I come from the comedy world…” and he was just like, “You just stay in shape, give me your all, and I’m going to make you an action star.” I just love that guy. He’s like my mentor. He’s amazing. He has that creativity and a will that just won’t quit, and I love him. The Expendables 2 is in theaters today. 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English comedian Leigh Francis really, really likes boobtastic Brit babe Kelly Brook — so much so, he wrote a part for her in his new movie Keith Lemon: The Film (in UK cinemas August 24 ) just so he could make out with her on screen. Funny, we tried that with Kelly and all we got was a restraining order… Leigh and his alter ego, Keith Lemon , are largely unknown outside of the UK, but they got a whole mess of international exposure when a clip featuring Kelly strutting her stuff down a crowded hallway in bra, panties and garter belt hit the ‘net a few days ago. That’s really all you need to know, so without further a boob – gentlemen, we are proud to present Kelly Brook SKIN motion after the jump!
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