Lionsgate just announced that Joe Wright, the director of Pride & Prejudice and Atonement , will helm a new adaptation of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina written by Tom Stoppard (who wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay of Shakespeare in Love , as well as countless revered plays). I think we’re owed an oversize Tolstoy treat in 2011, don’t you? We can’t subsist on The Last Station for much longer. And wait until you hear who’s set to star.
Mr. Skin Nudity Hall-of-Famer Monica Bellucci is a very giving woman. in fact, she is one of the most generous women Mr. Skin has ever known. Why do we say that? Because to Monica, peeling down on screen is an act of generosity. And with a body like that, we’re skin-clined to agree! Monica appears nude in her newest film, That Summer, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival this week. On the red carpet, Monica told reporters that she was in a very vulnerable place when she was asked to do the scene a mere month and a half after giving birth to her daughter. But she also said that when she takes a role, she completely trusts the director, and Phillippe Garrell , director of Last Summer , made her feel secure enough to give of her nude self. Spanks a million, Monica! Bec ause Mr. Skin is also a generous man, you can see her more of Monica Bellucci ‘s nude oevure after the jump!
Critics say the ‘found-footage’ film requires a suspension of disbelief to truly work. By Terri Schwartz “Apollo 18” Photo: Dimension Films “Apollo 18” is not a documentary — NASA made a point of clearing that up — but that doesn’t mean that a certain suspension of disbelief won’t make the movie a terrifying experience. The flick is just the latest to cash in on the found-footage premise made popular in 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project,” but it is the first to bring that filmmaking style to outer space. Some critics thought the premise worked in its new location, while others felt the film lost its momentum in the second hour. The consensus for is that it either will work for you or it won’t; which way will you sway? Check out what the critics have to say and make your decision in theaters this weekend. The Premise “These days, none but the most naive, gullible and uninformed of moviegoers would ever fall for the d
20th Century Fox and star Bruce Willis have settled on a director for Die Hard 5 : John Moore ( Behind Enemy Lines, The Omen ), who most recently helmed the 2008 shooter pic Max Payne . The John McClane five-quel will film in Russia with a rumored $100 million budget, according to Deadline, which reports that Moore is currently in negotiations. The real question is, with the 56-year-old Willis still going strong in action hero mode 23 years after he first cracked wise in the inaugural Die Hard , will these film ever truly die, hard or otherwise? [ Deadline ]
Gary Ross says Jennifer Lawrence will help him give viewers the same ‘visceral experience’ as the books. By Eric Ditzian Jennifer Lawrence in “The Hunger Games” Photo: Lionsgate While the “Hunger Games” teaser trailer lit up the MTV Video Music Awards on Sunday, director Gary Ross was back in North Carolina, his head space not so much occupied with Lady Gaga in drag and Lil Wayne’s long dreads as it was with Katniss Everdeen and the dystopian nation called Panem. Ross is still in the midst of shooting his adaptation of “The Hunger Games,” but last week, with the teaser set to debut at the VMAs, he took the time to touch base with MTV News via Skype to give us his exclusive commentary about the footage. Katniss Vision Suzanne Collins’ novel is a first-person tale, and it’s clear from the teaser Ross is striving to capture that same sort of immediate access into Katniss’ head. “I think one of the most important things when you adapt a book like this is to give people the experience they really had when they read it — the same kind of visceral experience they had,” he explained. “I think [the reason] everybody felt so strongly in what Suzanne did was that they were with this character, they understood her, they were in her shoes, they were in her head. It was such an intense first-person experience. My job in making a film is first and foremost to reflect that. “How do we get inside Katniss’ head? How do we feel what she’s feeling? How do we become her?” Ross continued. “The first thing that allows you to do that is Jennifer Lawrence, because she’s such an unbelievable actor. She has so much depth and power and talent and sophistication and sensitivity and subtly that she’s become Katniss Everdeen synonymously. I hope people feel about Jen and Katniss at the end of this three-book cycle the way they feel about Daniel Radcliffe and Harry Potter — that they’ve become very, synonymous with one another.” Get “Hunger Games” experts’ analysis of the teaser. Gale’s Voiceover That voiceover you hear during the trailer? That’s Katniss’ District 12 pal Gale Hawthorne (Liam Hemsworth). And Ross has a very specific idea in mind about the importance of making Gale a part of this initial footage (and not Katniss’ Hunger Games companion, Peeta Mellark). “As everyone knows, Gale is an enormous part of Katniss’ life, but he’s not as big a part of the first book as he is the subsequent books,” the director told us. “I think he’s very, very present and he’s tremendously important, but of course we shift into the Capitol and then the arena, where Peeta ends up playing a more prominent role. But he’s in her head, he’s in her life, he’s something that echoes with her throughout the games, as any reader of the book knows, so he plays an obviously prominent role.” The Difficulty of the Shoot Though Ross and his team didn’t have to contend with giant fireballs in the woods, as Katniss does in the first look, the filmmaker revealed that the set in the North Carolina forest posed quite a challenge to the production. “This was like shooting in Vietnam,” he said. “I felt like I was making ‘Apocalypse Now.’ The thing was so rigorous. We spent something like six weeks outside in the jungle every day, hiking up and down mountains with cameras and in the mud and in driving rain storms. We all felt it, but nobody felt it as much as Jen did. It’s been an intense physical experience for her.” Just Getting Started While Ross was proud to show off this initial footage, he told us this is only the beginning and that there are a few scenes and characters in particular that he can’t wait for people to see in the future. “We’re still shooting, so unfortunately, it’s just a teaser,” he said. “We could only give you a little bit, because we’re still down here making the movie. I’ve got to leave in half an hour and shoot. But there’s a lot of things to come that I think are going to be hugely epic and very emotional and incredibly powerful. I think that we’ve done wonderful things with the mutts. I think that we’ve done a tremendous job bringing the Capitol to life, and I think that’s going to be really, really exciting for people to see. And all the performances! Wait till you see Stanley Tucci do Caesar Flickerman.” Check out everything we’ve got on “The Hunger Games.” For young Hollywood news, fashion and “Twilight” updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com . Related Videos Exclusive ‘Hunger Games’ Sneak Peek Related Photos The Hunger Games ‘Hunger Games’ Cast Additions
Stephen Moyer and director Matthew Parkhill recall the eerie occurrences on the film’s Puerto Rico set. By Josh Wigler Stephen Moyer in “The Caller” Photo: Samuel Goldwyn Films There are probably are stranger, scarier things in the universe than a mystery woman from the past who can cross the space-time continuum to obsessively call your home telephone for hours and days and weeks on end. But the idea is plenty creepy as the premise of “The Caller,” director Matthew Parkhill’s indie thriller starring “Twilight” villainess Rachelle Lefevre and “True Blood” vamp Stephen Moyer. In “The Caller,” Puerto Rico resident Mary Kee (Lefevre) moves into a new home following a nasty separation from her abusive husband (“Eureka’s” Ed Quinn), only to find an even more harrowing nemesis in Rose (Lorna Raver), an unhinged and disgruntled woman living in the late 1970s. Rose somehow has the ability to call Mary’s new phone number some 30 years into the future, a seemingly impossible sci-fi feat that leaves our protagonist skeptical, frustrated and frightened in turns. When Mary’s patience for Rose’s hysteria wears thin, she learns the hard lesson that scorning a deranged woman who lives in the past can be hazardous for your health. Though it boasts a sinister plot, it was actually the behind-the-scenes mysteries that raised the hair on the backs of the “Caller” cast and crew’s necks throughout the film’s 23-day shoot. “Sometimes a shoot will take on its own energy,” Moyer, who plays Mary’s love interest and resident time-travel expert John Guidi, told MTV News. “Every day, something was happening. Things were breaking, film missing, scratches on necks … it just became this regular occurrence. Even after I left the shoot, me and Matthew and Rachelle would speak regularly, and there would be bits and pieces happening on a regular basis: phone calls coming in from people, literally prank phone calls. It was an odd, odd thing.” Parkhill said that screenwriter Sergio Casci was convinced there was a “curse of ‘The Caller.’ ” But the director doesn’t much believe in curses himself, though even he admitted to “weird” and “unsettling” occurrences. “We dressed Mary’s living room with these old National Geographic magazines, and one of them fell open to this page where there were three corpses hanging in this old room, that were identical to the three corpses hanging in our pantry,” said Parkhill, referring to a trio of bodies that play a pivotal role in the horror film. “Then when we were shooting in a supermarket, we moved one of the supermarket shelves and there was an old bottle of perfume that had cracked which was labeled ‘Rose,’ which is [the name of the film’s villain].” In the end, none of these eerie events was powerful enough to derail production on “The Caller,” which opens in limited release on Friday (August 26). But that doesn’t mean that the alleged curse of “The Caller” doesn’t still rear its head from time to time. The press junket held in San Juan earlier this week just so happened to coincide with the presence of Hurricane Irene in Puerto Rico, a threat that is now storming its way up the East Coast. As a result of the storm, certain parts of Puerto Rico — including the hotel that housed the “Caller” cast and crew for the week — were left almost entirely without power for multiple days. “It feels particularly fitting that we’re in the middle of a hurricane,” Moyer told MTV with a grin. “There’s no power. Last night, after we all left the bar, we had to go back to [our rooms] with flashlights. It’s literally pitch black in the hotel. You’ve just watched a horror film, which is pretty scary, and you’re going into your room with a flashlight and you can’t see anything. I think all of us went through some moments last night thinking, ‘This is it. My time is up! Somebody’s going to jump out of the cupboard!’ ” Check out everything we’ve got on “The Caller.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com .
‘It was necessary, because these are the things that happen in real life,’ director Chris Robinson tells MTV News. By Rob Markman Lil Wayne Photo: MTV News The lyrics of Lil Wayne’s ballad “How to Love” are probably best described as romantically tragic, but after Weezy premiered the video online Wednesday, the song took on a more dire meaning. The Chris Robinson-directed clip tells the story of an abused mother, who unintentionally leads her daughter to relive her own vicious cycle. “I have a daughter, Wayne has a daughter, and he really wanted to tell the story,” Robinson told MTV News. “We were talking about statistics of abuse in our community. We were talking about really telling this story for every young woman in the world.” The video follows the life of a mother, who is beaten by her boyfriend while her baby daughter watches. As the little girl grows older, she visits her father in prison, and then as a preteen, she is molested by one of her mother’s lovers. From there, the young lady, played by model/actress Chanta Patton, grows up to become a stripper and eventual prostitute who contracts HIV. The cautionary clip is heavy in its message and not necessarily easy to watch. It wasn’t easy to film, either; Robinson talked about the difficulty of filming the molestation scene, where we see the young girl wearing pigtails trying to fight off her adult attacker. “That was a harsh scene; it was difficult for us to shoot,” the director said. “It was necessary, because these are the things that happen in real life. And you can see the trajectory of where that took her.” The video in some ways is reminiscent of TLC’s 1995 video for “Waterfalls,” in which the song drives a narrative with a deep message. Weezy’s performance shots are almost an afterthought. “Speaking to Wayne, his performance — actually seeing him — was secondary to him,” Robinson explained. “He really wanted to communicate what his thought was, what he really felt when he wrote these lyrics, and that was the priority for us.” In fact, it was the rapper’s lyrics that drove the story home. Key scenes fell in sync with Tunechi’s rhymes. “For me, I think Wayne’s performance, we really showed him when he said these poignant lines, things that really connected,” the director explained. “The concept is more a narrative. It’s a story about two paths in someone’s life and how one small choice that you make can affect your whole life.” Lil Wayne, who hits the stage as a performer at Sunday’s VMAs , will drop Tha Carter IV at midnight after the big show. The 28th annual MTV Video Music Awards will air live Sunday from Los Angeles at 9 p.m. ET/PT, following the Selena Gomez-hosted pre-show at 8. See the list of nominees, revisit last year’s highlights and vote for Best New Artist by visiting VMA.MTV.com . Related Artists Lil Wayne
Joe Jonas, Miguel, Chiddy Bang and Wallpaper also set to hit the stage for performances, including a live stream before Sunday’s big show. By Jocelyn Vena Gabe Saporta Photo: Roger Kisby/Getty Images Sure, the big show happens on Sunday night, but before the 2011 Video Music Awards kick off officially, MTV is throwing two star-studded concerts to get the party started. On Friday, Swizz Beatz , Chiddy Bang and Wallpaper will perform at the Taco Bell Presents the MTV2 VMA Concert, with Jessie J — our 2011 VMA House Artist — hosting the event. If you aren’t lucky enough to be in attendance at the Los Angeles show, you can still check out footage from the event. MTV2’s “Sucker Free” will be filming on site with guests Swizz Beatz and Chiddy Bang, and the episode is set to air Sunday at 11 a.m., with a special encore airing at 11 p.m. ET, right after the VMAs. Then on Saturday, Cobra Starship , Joe Jonas and Miguel are set to perform at mtvU’s VMA Concert to Benefit Lifebeat – Music Fights HIV. Cobra Starship, along with special guest Sabi, will perform their track “You Make Me Feel” during the black carpet VMA Pre-Show . Can’t make it to the mtvU Lifebeat show? Not a problem. MTV.com, in partnership with the Capital One Journey Card, is exclusively presenting live-stream performances by Joe Jonas and Miguel beginning at 9:30 p.m. PT on Saturday. During the show, fans can use their Facebook and Twitter accounts to chat about it. And after the show, select full length performances will be available on-demand at vma.mtv.com . “MTV supports so many great causes, and we’re beyond grateful that they’ve made Lifebeat a part of VMA weekend again this year,” Lifebeat Executive Director Ben Wymer said in statement. “We’re looking forward to an amazing event and raising lots of funds for HIV/AIDS prevention and support.” The 28th annual MTV Video Music Awards will air live Sunday, August 28, from the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles at 9 p.m. ET/PT, following the Selena Gomez-hosted pre-show at 8. See the list of nominees, revisit last year’s highlights and vote for Best New Artist by visiting VMA.MTV.com . Related Photos 2011 MTV Video Music Awards Performers 2011 Video Music Award Nominees Related Artists Cobra Starship Swizz Beatz
From last year’s set visit to this year’s early screening, we’ve been following Jesse Eisenberg and Aziz Ansari’s comedy all the way. By Eric Ditzian Aziz Ansari and Jesse Eisenberg in “30 Minutes or Less” Photo: Wilson Webb/ Columbia Pictures Like a bomb indestructibly attached to an anxious pizza delivery boy’s chest, “30 Minutes or Less” hasn’t been able to shake MTV News off itself. From the early news updates (Jesse Eisenberg as that unfortunate pie-slinger, “Zombieland” helmer Ruben Fleischer in the director’s chair) to the exclusive first look at the Michigan set to an MTV Sneak Peek Week public screening of the action-comedy and beyond, we’ve been all over this movie. And now that it’s finally hit theaters, we’re not letting go quite yet. So slip on our “30 Minutes” cheat sheet for everything you need to know before heading to the multiplex this weekend. Tick, Tock, Tick, Tock The project began to come together in earnest in the spring of last year, when Fleischer signed on, followed by Aziz Ansari, Eisenberg (a “Zombieland” vet) , Danny McBride and Nick Swardson. In the film, McBride and Swardson play lowlife slackers who hatch a devious, deranged plan: hook Eisenberg’s delivery dude up like a suicide bomber and force him to rob a bank before the explosives go kablooey. Eisenberg, in turn, recruits his best friend, played by Ansari, to help out with the unfortunate activities. “They’re kind of simple dudes,” Swardson later explained to us . “They’re not very learned. But they’re not like robots. At the core, they are actually very nice people. They believe in friendship and things like that.” “They just want to be loved,” added McBride, “whether it takes a bomb or a bank robbery to get there.” Filming kicked off that summer in Grand Rapids, Michigan. MTV News was invited to check out the action in August, when the production settled into a dusty junkyard to shoot McBride and Swardson blowing up watermelons and kidnapping Eisenberg. Fun! But we had to keep the whole thing under wraps for months, until well after the F-bomb-laden, red-band trailer hit the Web this past spring. Light ‘Em Up! On set, all it seemed anyone could talk about was how bad a driver Eisenberg was . The future Oscar nominee didn’t seem to care. “I live in New York City and ride a bicycle, so I never drive ever, so I’ve been given the opportunity and a cool car,” he told MTV News. “Every time I drive, I get yelled at by the crew, but the stunt drivers always wink at me and say, ‘Nah, that was good, man. Keep doing it.’ I’ve been subtly and subversively encouraged to be very dangerous in the car.” In his defense, there is something dangerous and subversive about the whole movie, as further clips would make clear. In one exclusive MTV News debuted , Eisenberg, newly sporting a bomb on his chest, heads straight to the elementary school where Ansari teaches, because hey, where else would a bomb-carrying pizza boy go other than a school filled with young children? “Jesse, to his credit, is a great improviser,” Fleischer told us. “Both in ‘Zombieland’ and in this movie, he is responsible for so many funny lines, and he can kind of roll. I don’t think that’s his most comfortable gear, but when it’s pushed up, he can give back as good as anybody.” Added Ansari , “What was really fun about the movie, and Ruben did such a good job putting the cast together, we all kind of have different energies that play off well with one another.” Almost Out of Time Fans got an early look at those energies days before the MTV Movie Awards, when we staged a sneak-peek screening of the film. It was at the post-screening Q&A that we got to the bottom of the rumor that Taylor Lautner had shot a cameo in the film. “He’s in it!” Ansari joked, before admitting the truth. “I read that somewhere. I was like, ‘I didn’t know about that.’ … Let’s start that rumor. People like him, right? Just say he’s in the movie. ‘That Lautner cameo is dope, man! You gotta see that movie with Taylor Lautner!’ ” There are far more reasons than a “Twilight” star, though, to merit checking out the film in all its ridiculousness. Just peep some footage from the set, when McBride and Swardson blow those watermelons to smithereens . Those guys are, in the best buddy-comedy tradition, total freaking idiots. Their real-life counterparts kind of are too. “Just point to the bank,” Swardson said when we asked what it’d take for him to rob a bank. “Give me a good mask and a loaded weapon, I’m on,” McBride added. Check out everything we’ve got on “30 Seconds or Less.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com .
