Now that John Hillcoat ‘s brutal Prohibition tale Lawless has hit screens ( read Movieline’s review here ) you can more vividly imagine the testosterone-and-moonshine fueled atmosphere that might have permeated the set, where, as Lawless legend has it, co-stars Shia LaBeouf and Tom Hardy had an unscripted scuffle. Nevertheless, while making the press rounds Hillcoat and LaBeouf both tried to squash rumors of the brotherly beef. Just a little innocent horseplay gone wrong? LaBeouf and Hardy play Jack and Forrest Bondurant, two of a trio of bootlegging brothers who come to blows with the law (and, sometimes, each other) as they run a moonshine empire out of their hill country home base. A third brother, Howard (played by Jason Clarke) rounds out the sibling dynamic, but it’s the strained relationship between the cardigan-clad family head Forrest and young, headstrong Jack that provides the bulk of the dramatic push and pull. As the story goes, one day on set LaBeouf knocked out Hardy and Hardy “never did that roughhouse stuff with me again.” The tangle first came to light in LaBeouf’s fantastically unfiltered Details interview , though that was, understandably, overshadowed by his revelation about hooking up with Transformers co-star Megan Fox and other assorted truth bombs. Then, while promoting his MMA pic Warrior , Hardy dropped a few cheeky quotes about the incident. “I got knocked out by Shia LaBeouf, actually,” Hardy said to journalists, as recounted by Den of Geek . “In Wettest County , apparently .” Apparently! So now comes Hillcoat to set the record straight. “There was this kind of, like, this challenging brotherly thing that starts going on with him,” Hillcoat admitted in an interview with Yahoo . “But yeah, there was a tussle, but it wasn’t quite the thing that was described.” LaBeouf, who’s yet again spilled so many juicier, more distracting quotes of late — from his acid-dropping Method acting to his embracing of real sex in Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac to his maybe-joke that he got the job by sending in a sex tape — tells MTV that the fistfight was borne out of love. “That was straight love,” he said. “There was a lot of love on that set in general. There was a lot of aggression in me and a lot of aggression on [Hardy’s] side. We were playing brothers. There was a constant finger-in-the-ear [teasing] thing going on for a while.” [ Yahoo , MTV ]
Teletubbies marketing visionary Kenn Viselman was banking on his latest kiddie venture, the C-list cameo-packed “interactive” adventure The Oogieloves In The Big Balloon Adventure , capturing the hearts and minds of 3-5 year-olds and their parents this Labor Day weekend. But while it looks like Viselman will make a historical splash in the film game, it’s so, so, so the wrong kind: Averaging just $47 per screen after opening in 2,160 theaters on Wednesday, Oogieloves could go down with one of the worst openings of all time. Box Office Mojo reports the dismal figures from Oogieloves ‘ opening day as a $102,564 take in over 2,000 theaters, or an average of $47.48 per screen, which Christopher Rosen of Huffington Post points out could grant Oogieloves the title of worst wide-release ever if business doesn’t pick up. Like, a lot . But hey, there’s always the chance that parents were waiting for the weekend to take the kids to go dance and talk back to the three giant, terrifying noseless puppet heroes of Oogieloves . Kids love J. Edgar jokes and Christopher Lloyd with maracas! Fingers crossed you make back that $20 million budget, fellas! Meanwhile, stay tuned for further developments on the Oogieloves front. We’re keeping a close watch on this one. Previously: So WTF Is An Oogieloves , Anyway? [ Box Office Mojo , HuffPo ]
Gorgeous Australian actress Nicole Kidman is delighting us again with a hot sex scene from the film, a story about those two writers and their love. We always love to watch beautiful Aussie girl Nicole playing in different sex scenes Continue reading →
Also in Thursday’s round-up of news briefs, the Academy approves some new rules for the next Oscars. A crime thriller gets a North American home and is headed to theaters. And, Charlize Theron is teaming on a story about a recently slain war journalist. Academy Approves New Slate of Rules for Next Oscars Among the changes, there will now be five nominees vying for the Original Song category. Also, the “Art Direction” award will now be known as the “Production Design” award. The Academy Awards ceremony is slated for Sunday, February 24, 2013. Crime Thriller Graceland Heads to Theaters Filipino crime saga Graceland will be released next year in theaters and VOD via Drafthouse Films. The Tribeca premiere spotlights the corrupt underbelly of the Philippines’ capital “exposing a world of deceit, exploitation, and startling depravity.” It is slated for the upcoming Fantastic Fest. The deal was negotiated by James Emanuel Shapiro on behalf of Drafthouse Films and Glen Reynolds of Circus Road Films on behalf of the film’s producer Rebecca Lundgren. Around the ‘net… The Avengers to Cash In on Labor Day Marvel’s The Avengers is seeking to increase its nearly $1.5 billion worldwide gross by heading to 1,700 theaters, hoping to capitalize on Labor Day moviegoers. It is the third biggest grossing film so far, Deadline reports . Charlize Theron to Produce Film About Slain War Reporter Theron and producer Basil Iwanyk are teaming on a film about the life of journalist Marie Colvin, who was killed in February while covering the civil war in Syria, THR reports . Clint Eastwood’s Republican Convention Prompts Mixed Reaction Delegates in Tampa have begun debating whether spotlighting a Hollywood celebrity was a good idea. THR asked 30 random convention attendees and just five said his presence was “meaningful.”
“Sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place,” the molasses-and-whiskey voice of Sam Elliott says of The Dude in the Coen Brothers’ 1998 cult classic, The Big Lebowski . And thanks to filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig , the time and place for the actual Dude who inspired the Dude will span a good 40 years at least. The Atlantic today posted a link to The Dude (Director’s Cut) , a 2011 documentary (in its entirety) by Feuerzeig ( The Devil and Daniel Johnston , The Real Rocky ) that traces the history of Jeff Dowd, a 1960s antiwar activist-turned-independent-film-promoter, who not only inspired Jeff Bridges’ accidental philosopher character in The Big Lebowski but helped the Coen Brothers distribute their first film, Blood Simple , in the 1980s. Dowd’s first taste of notoriety came in 1970 when he made headlines as one of the “Seattle Seven” — members of the Seattle Liberation Front who were indicted on charges of inciting a riot at the Federal Courthouse in downtown Seattle where 20 people were injured and 76 were arrested. (His arrest is cited in The Big Lebowski .) Dowd and his fellow defendants turned their fall trial into a media circus by hurling catcalls at the judge, and staging a courtroom walk-out. The judge eventually declared a mistrial but cited the Seattle Seven for contempt and they ultimately served three months in prison. In Feuerzeig’s film, Dowd also talks about how he landed in the film industry where he worked with Robert Redford on the embryonic stages of the Sundance Institute. According to IMDB, Dowd served as producer’s representative on Madonna’s breakthrough movie Desperately Seeking Susan and as a producer of the 1992 film Zebrahead . Check out Feuerzeig’s film and the real Dude below: THE DUDE (Director’s Cut) from Jeff Feuerzeig on Vimeo . Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
There are two approaches to onscreen nudity. One is the Shannon Elizabeth / Linnea Quigley school, where an actress makes her anatomical assets the center of attention in a series of comedy (or horror) flicks– and her career. The other is the Kate Winslet / Michelle Williams school, where an actress uses onscreen nudity to prove that she’s “serious” about her art and deserves an armload of awards like so . It’s a little late for Helen Hunt to get on the “scream queen” bandwagon, so she’s enrolled in the latter school for her new movie The Sessions (formerly known as The Surrogate ), where she makes her full frontal debut as a sex therapist with an unusual specialty: personally relieving patients of their virginity. Nudecomer Annika Marks also goes nude in the film, which is already garnering serious awards buzz for Hunt as well as for John Hawkes as one of her disabled clients. If all else fails, Helen, rest assured: you’re an early favorite for an Anatomy Award. See “serious actresses” practicing their craft in Mr. Skin’s extensive Nude Best Actress Oscar Winners playlist, right here at MrSkin.com!
Butter (2011) has been making the festival rounds for a while now (our Skin Skout saw a screening at SXSW back in March), but the satirical comedy starring Jennifer Garner as a self-righteous housewife and Olivia Wilde as a home-wrecking stripper has just now released a trailer. We’ve got mixed feelings about this one, and here’s why: On the one hand, our Skin Skout reports that, despite the suggestive trailer and “R” rating, Olivia does not go nude in the film, a depressingly typical state of affairs for celebrity “stripper” roles (See also: Closer ). On the other, the trailer doesn’t mention the “good part” of the film, a girl-girl makeout scene between Olivia and Twilight star Ashley Greene . And that’s more than enough to make us melt (in our pants, of course). Butter hits theaters on October 4 , but you can see stars Olivia Wilde , Jennifer Garner and Alicia Silverstone nude right now here at MrSkin.com!
Robert Zemeckis’ Flight starring Denzel Washington will screen as the Centerpiece of the Austin Film Festival & Conference . The 2012 event, taking place October 18 – 25 revealed some details of its upcoming event Tuesday including 10 films that will join this year’s lineup. AFF annually hosts over 180 film screenings and events, while the Conference welcomes over 100 speakers in its panels and roundtables. Among the films screened during the festival are numerous world and US premieres in a wide range of genres, from comedy to documentary, horror to drama. Also on tap for this year, X-Files creator Chris Carter will receive the event’s Outstanding Television Writer Award at AFF’s annual Awards Luncheon on Saturday, October 22nd. Carter will join Paul Feig and Brian Helgeland as part of AFF’s new “Guest Programmer” section of the festival, giving “highly regarded filmmakers” the chance to screen and discuss films they found influential. Carter will also participate in – fittingly – “A Conversation with Chris Carter,” where he will share stories from his long career in television and film. Carter will also present special retrospective screenings of The X-Files and Millennium episodes. There are also plans to screen an X-Files marathon at the Alamo Drafthouse. AFF will release the rest of its lineup in September. Details of AFF’s early 10 films follow with details provided by the festival : Flight – Centerpiece Film Writer: John Gatins Director: Robert Zemeckis In this action-packed mystery thriller, Academy Award winner Denzel Washington stars as Whip Whitaker, a seasoned airline pilot who miraculously crash-lands his plane after a mid-air catastrophe, saving nearly every soul on board. After the crash, Whip is hailed as a hero, but as more is learned, more questions than answers arise as to who or what was really at fault, and what really happened on that plane? Directed by Robert Zemeckis, the highly anticipated new film also stars John Goodman, Don Cheadle, and Melissa Leo. Free Samples Writer: Jim Beggarly Director: Jay Gammill A Stanford law school dropout named Jillian escapes to the anonymity of Los Angeles to figure out what she wants to do with her life, and on the day of her college boyfriend’s birthday, she finds herself stuck running an ice cream truck fending off locals and oddball friends alike. This one day spent in a truck on the streets of LA will wake Jillian from her aimless daze and make her see that life doesn’t stop just because you want it to. Starring Jess Weixler, Jesse Eisenberg, Halley Feiffer, Jason Ritter, this great new comedy is directed by Baylor University film school grad Jay Gammill. It’s A Disaster Writer/Director: Todd Berger Four couples meet for Sunday brunch only to discover they are stuck in a house together as the world may be about to end. StarringJulia Stiles, America Ferrera and David Cross. Julia Stiles and America Ferrera will present the screening at AFF. Last Will & Testament Directors: Laura Wilson, Lisa Wilson US Premiere This documentary explores the ongoing debate about the authorship of the works attributed to Shakespeare. Writers and critics, actors and scholars, including Mark Twain, Sigmund Freud, Charlie Chaplin, and many others have struggled to reconcile England’s “Star of Poets” with the grain dealer from Stratford. Why? – Featuring interviews with Vanessa Redgrave, Derek Jacobi, Mark Rylance, and other highly regarded Shakespearean actors. Pictures of Superheroes World Premiere Writer/Director: Don Swaynos A young maid is asked by her employer to pretend to be his wife as part of a highly questionable business scheme. Meanwhile, she meets the comic book superhero artist living in her employer’s home (seemingly without the employer’s knowledge or permission), and she begins to wonder if there is something more to life than fake marriages and carpet cleaners. Produced by Kelly Williams, and starring Kerri Lendo, John Merriman, Byron Brown and Chris Doubek. Rising From Ashes Director: T.C. Johnstone Two worlds collide when cycling legend Jock Boyer (first American to compete in the Tour de France) moves to Rwanda and teams with Tom Ritchey (inventor of the mountain bike) to help a group of struggling genocide survivors pursue their dream of a national team. As they set out against impossible odds, both Jock and the team find new purpose as they rise from the ashes of their past. Narrated by Forest Whitaker and directed by Austin native T.C. Johnstone, this remarkable story culminated at the 2012 Olympics in London when one of the subjects of the film, Adrien Niyonshuti, competed in the Games and became Rwanda’s first Olympic cyclist. Shadow Dancer Writer: Tom Bradby Director: James March Single mother Collette McVeigh is a Republican living in Belfast with her mother and hardliner IRA brothers. When she is arrested for her part in an aborted IRA bomb plot in London, an MI5 officer (Mac, played by Clive Owen) offers her a choice: lose everything and go to prison for 25 years or return to Belfast to spy on her own family. With her son’s life in her hands, Collette chooses to place her trust in Mac and return home, but when her brothers’ secret operation is ambushed, suspicions of an informant are raised and Collette finds both herself and her family in grave danger. Starring Clive Owen, Andrea Riseborough, and Gillian Anderson. Spinning Plates World Premiere Writer/Director: Joseph Levy Spinning Plates is a feature documentary film about three restaurants, extraordinary for what they are today as well as the challenges they have overcome. A cutting-edge restaurant named the seventh best in the world whose chef must battle a life-threatening obstacle to pursue his passion… a 150-year-old family restaurant still standing only because of the unbreakable bond with its community… a fledgling Mexican restaurant whose owners are putting everything they have on the line just to make enough to survive and provide for their young daughter. Features Chef Grant Achatz of Chicago’s Alinea and Chef Thomas Keller of California’s The French Laundry. To Kill A Memory World Premiere Writers: Dustin Rikert, William Shockley, Philip Tiboni Director: Dustin Rikert A respected US Marshal is imprisoned after being suspiciously involved in a bank robbery gone wrong. When he learns that the other bank robbers may be going after his wife, the Marshal must escape prison and catch them before it’s too late. This low budget indie Western features an astonishing lead performance from country western singer Kix Brooks of Brooks and Dunn. Kix Brooks will present the screening at AFF. Paul Feig Presents: The Human Tornado and Bringing Up Baby This year, AFF is excited to introduce an all new Guest Programmer section, which invites some of our highly regarded panelists and guest filmmakers to program and present films that inspired them. Paul Feig (director of Bridesmaids , creator of “Freaks and Geeks,” also directed episodes of “Arrested Development,” “The Office,” “Mad Men,” “30 Rock” and more) has chosen two very different films: the blaxsploitation Dolemite adventure The Human Tornado and Howard Hawks’ immortal screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby . Don’t miss an opportunity to hear how these two wildly diverse films influenced one of the most in-demand directors in Hollywood today.
As rollicking and rough as a drive down a dirt road with no suspension, Lawless is a tale of three-bootlegging brothers from Prohibition-era Franklin County, Virginia, who are, in the words of one character, some “hard-ass crackers.” Directed by Australia’s John Hillcoat ( The Road ) and written by musician Nick Cave (who’s adapted Matt Bondurant’s historical novel The Wettest County in the World ), Lawless is, like their last collaboration The Proposition , a kind of remixed Western at heart. It’s a story in which the law and the outlaws are equally outsized and dangerous — and a world in which the fighting has nothing to do with keeping order and everything to do with displays of strength. “It is not the violence that sets men apart. It is the distance that he is prepared to go,” declares oldest brother Forrest Bondurant (Tom Hardy), the hardest boiled of them all. To say that Lawless (or The Proposition ) romanticizes violence isn’t quite right — every tommy-gun bullet wound and knife wound is sickeningly visceral, and when a character gets his throat cut the man doing the deed has to saw through resisting flesh. But the film does relish and find lyricism in these tribal philosopher psychopaths who use force with the measured anticipation of an oenophile savoring a sip of wine. The sheer appreciation Lawless has for its characters and its setting makes it a pleasure to settle into, even though the film can be carelessly formless and feel like a rough draft that was never sculpted into something more meaningful. As Jack Bondurant, the youngest of the three brothers and the one most eager to prove himself, Shia LaBeouf, is both the primary focus of the film and its narrator — an unfortunate thing, since he’s also the character we least want to spend time with. Forrest is so tough he’s developed a mythology around him, that even he might believe, about being invincible — and given the ordeal he survives in this film, there might be something to that. Middle sibling Howard (Jason Clarke) is huge and half-feral, especially when he’s on one of his benders. But Jack’s been kept on the outside of the family business, allowed only to be the driver as the brothers travel the county, dispensing corn whiskey. That changes when an act of aggression by two out-of-towners gives him the opportunity to make a deal with gangster Floyd Banner (a gleeful Gary Oldman) after almost dying at his hands. At the core of Lawless is the escalating conflict between the Bondurant brothers and a corrupt Chicago lawman named Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) who’s coming down hard on the county to get protection money from its many moonshiners. But there are plenty of detours taken: Jack woos preacher’s daughter Bertha (Mia Wasikowska) and starts up his own stills with the disabled Cricket (Dane DeHaan). Forrest makes sparks with dancer-turned-waitress Maggie (Jessica Chastain). Lawless is really about the adventures of the Bondurants and their friends and foes during Prohibition, and the characters are so compelling it would really be enough to just spend time in their presence. Forrest in particular is a memorable contradiction: Aside from his flashes of savagery, Hardy maintains an almost grandfatherly air. Clad in cardigans and prone to muttering, he refuses to step down to anyone and yet, is utterly undone by Maggie’s arrival in his life. As Rakes, Pearce is almost too outsized for the film to contain him. With his blackened, immaculately pomaded hair, parted dramatically down the center, and his pale eyebrows, he looks like a cross between Crispin Glover and Voldemort. He wields his vague sexuality — “You’re a peach,” he croons to Jack before punching him in the face — like a threat, mincing in his flawless suit right before delivering a ruthless beating, then ceremoniously peeling off his blood-stained leather gloves. It’s a unique performance, albeit so mannered it almost rends the already accommodating fabric of the film. Factor in the prevalence of international actors in the cast and the unfocused nature of the narrative,and Lawless seems to take place in an impressionistic space rather than a historical one. It’s Charlie and Forrest that we want to see have a showdown, though it’s Jack who more often ends up in the former’s crosshairs. It’s not LaBeouf’s fault that his character is the flimsiest. The story keeps giving him foolish things to do to bring around more action, including accidentally leading the police to the family’s stills. His role as catalyst eventually becomes irritating because we don’t want the story to move along. The world that Lawless presents is so vivid and pleasing that we want to linger over the details. It’s a film that finds delicate beauty in the image of someone bleeding out in the snow, and turns a drunken, impulsive visit to church service into an overwhelming sensory experience. The appeal of Lawless is not the story it tells but rather the world that it creates. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
While the GOP gathers in tropical storm-plagued Tampa to Do That Thing They Do, this week’s new DVD selections feature a rallying cry against the status quo and an overblown, flag-waving spectacle based on a board game that, all things considered, is still pretty fun to watch. HIGH: #ReGeneration (Virgil Films; $19.99, DVD) Who’s Responsible: Written and directed by Phillip Montgomery; narrated (and produced) by Ryan Gosling; appearances by Noam Chomsky , Howard Zinn, Talib Kweli. What It’s All About: The film’s marketing suggests it’s a documentary about the Occupy movement, but it’s got a more ambitious agenda than that. #ReGeneration feels less interested in the economic roots of the protests than in the cultural underpinnings of Occupy (mass media manipulation, the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, corporatization, the crumbling educational infrastructure, our interactions with computer and TV screens instead of each other). Interview subjects include activists, intellectuals, high school students, the founder of Adbusters magazine, and just plain folks who feel somewhat helpless about their ability to change the world. Why It’s Schmancy: Packing such ambitious subject matter into 81 minutes leads to a certain lack of focus, but the movie ultimately stands as a rallying cry for the new “Me Generation” to rediscover a sense of community and to fight back against being turned into wage-slave drones controlled by shadowy figures on high. It’s also probably one of the few documentaries you’ll ever see that features critiques of the media from both the legendarily leftist Chomsky and Libertarian Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson . Why You Should Buy It: The bonus features are relatively meager, but the deleted scenes include more thoughts from the late Zinn ( A People’s History of the United States ), some interesting interviews with Japanese teens and their parents (who seem to be dealing with the same cultural issues as their North American peers) and the use of the phrase “Coca-Colonization,” which I kinda love. LOW: Battleship (Universal Studios Home Entertainment; $34.98 Blu-Ray, $29.98 DVD) Who’s Responsible: Written by Jon Hoeber and Erich Hoeber, “Based on Hasbro’s Battleship”; directed by Peter Berg; starring Taylor Kitsch, Brooklyn Decker, Liam Neeson, Rihanna What It’s About: Nefarious aliens follow a beacon signal sent out from Earth — stupid science! — and the planet’s only hope to repel the invasion is a cocky, trouble-making Naval officer (Kitsch) and his plucky crew. Will they save the day? Will Kitsch win the hand of girlfriend Brooklyn Decker over the objections of her dad, the admiral (Neeson)? Will this ludicrous but entertaining action extravaganza find an audience on home video after tanking at the box office? Why It’s Fun: Granted, a big, loud, stupid and expensive movie based on a board game pretty much encapsulates everything that’s wrong with Hollywood these days. But as big, loud, stupid summer movies go (and the fact that it’s on DVD before Labor Day tells you something about its fate in theaters), Battleship is surprisingly entertaining in its silliness. Despite its illogical story line, the hackneyed characters and the movie’s unapologetic, join-the-Navy bursts of jingoism, it never lags. That sounds like damning with faint praise, but how many other elephantine high-concept explosion-fests in recent years can make the same claim? Why You Should Buy It: The DVD includes the requisite making-of and meet-the-cast extras, and the Blu-Ray throws in a few additional ones, including the previsualization of an alternate ending and a look into the special effects and the legendary USS Missouri (which plays a key role in the film). If you’re looking for something to throw into your home theater system to show off the booming sound and the crisp hi-def images, this one will hit the mark. 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.
