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Arnold Schwarzenegger Cameo ‘Too Gimmicky’ for Total Recall Reboot, Ethan Hawke Scenes Scrapped

Friday’s Total Recall reboot trades heavily on brand enthusiasm for Paul Verhoeven’s original 1990 dystopian sci-fi actioner , but its makers had to be careful not to invoke too much of the Arnold Schwarzenegger vehicle. And cool as it would’ve been to see the former Governator pop up in the new, grittier reimagining starring Colin Farrell, Jessica Biel, Kate Beckinsale, and Bryan Cranston, director Len Wiseman ( Underworld , Live Free or Die Hard ) explained to Movieline why he chose not to indulge his inner fanboy. “There was talk about it very early on, and the kind of teenager in me fan was very tempted by it,” Wiseman said of the possibility of a Schwarzenegger cameo. “But the further we got into production on it, I just thought it would be too gimmicky. I wanted the movie to be its own movie.” The tonal difference between the original Total Recall and Wiseman’s is one reason why such a wink-wink nod might have distracted audiences too much. “I had to kind of check myself,” he continued. “How often had I seen that happen where I really thought it worked well? I haven’t, actually. It refers to itself in such a gimmicky way that I think it just takes you out of the movie.” Another would-be stunt cameo that almost made it into the Total Recall reboot was a brief appearance by Ethan Hawke , who was widely reported last year to be contributing a mystery performance to the film. Hawke even filmed his scene, which was said to include a five-page monologue . [KINDA-SPOILER ALERT] Producer Toby Jaffe spilled the beans , revealing that Hawke had been brought in to play a version of Farrell’s character Hauser, who subsequently undergoes the mind wipe and a face lift and wakes up sans memories as Quaid. “Ethan plays who he was before they wiped his mind and changed his face,” Jaffe told ScreenRant during production. [END SPOILERS] Hawke’s scene, however, did not make it into the final cut. As Wiseman told Movieline, “it was deleted, as many scenes were, for pacing and what have you.” But he also says Hawke’s footage could make it into the film’s eventual DVD/Blu-ray extended cut, although exactly how remains to be seen. As for Schwarzenegger, who’s back in the acting game post-politics and has Expendables 2 coming out two weeks after Total Recall , Wiseman was hopeful Arnold would eventually see the film: “I’d love him to see it.” Stay tuned for more with Total Recall ‘s Kate Beckinsale and Len Wiseman. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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Arnold Schwarzenegger Cameo ‘Too Gimmicky’ for Total Recall Reboot, Ethan Hawke Scenes Scrapped

On The Come Up: Director Hilton Carter’s Film Premiering On HBO

Meet Hilton Carter. Writer. Director. All around Creative Genius. With the help of his partner Evan Guidera and under their Fresh Kill production company, Mr. Carter directed and wrote his short film Moth; the story of a young woman caught up in a world of drugs, based on Paul Delaroche’s painting ‘The Young Martyr”. The film is available on HBO now through August 31st…check it out! As Carter described “MOTH is a suspenseful short film about a troubled young model/starlet who “can’t find the right path, get it right at this moment.Drugs put her in a dangerous spiral that the viewer is not sure she will escape.”  Escape or not, the film is well written and directed. While it may only be just under 15 minutes, it pulls you in with it’s immediate mood and undertone. Visually pleasing, the film and Hilton Carter are both worth watching.

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On The Come Up: Director Hilton Carter’s Film Premiering On HBO

He-Man Steps Up: Jon M. Chu In Talks For Live-Action Masters of the Universe

By the power of Grayskull, get ready for this: The Masters of the Universe reboot is back on the docket, with news that Jon M. Chu ( Step Up 2 The Streets , Justin Bieber: Never Say Never , G.I. Joe: Retaliation ) is in talks to helm the He-Man flick. Per Deadline, “the film revolves around He-Man, a prince who transforms into a warrior and becomes the last hope for a magical world that has been ravaged by the sinister Skeletor.” Well, duh . Chu, who revitalized and set the pace for the Step Up franchise post-Channing Tatum then handily served up Bieber Fever with a well-conceived flick of that mop-top in 3-D, is currently converting G.I. Joe to 3-D for Paramount and directing Bieber’s live concert tour. On top of that, the success of his superhero webseries The LXD gave way to an entire YouTube channel ( DS2DIO ) dedicated to dance. He’s a busy guy with his hands in a number of youth-oriented projects and in his last three features has demonstrated a visionary knack utilizing dimensionalized space, although post-converting Joe wasn’t his first choice . Will his Masters of the Universe also go 3-D? I wouldn’t be surprised, but Sony Pictures and Escape Artists had better give Chu the time and money he needs up front if they’re even thinking of putting MoTU out in a souped-up format. Although we’ve got months to go to see if fans embrace or revolt against Chu’s version of G.I. Joe , Masters of the Universe devotees should take this as a good thing: Chu is nothing if not mindful of paying fan service to beloved properties. Besides, someone’s already mucked up He-Man on the big screen, and how . And it won’t be like this (probably): The next question is: Who could play He-Man? (And then: If MoTU is a hit, could She-Ra follow ?) Discuss! [ Deadline ]

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He-Man Steps Up: Jon M. Chu In Talks For Live-Action Masters of the Universe

The Dark Knight Rises Heads to No. 1 in the Box Office

Some Moviegoers were said to be hesitant to attend The Dark Knight Rises , but a number of people apparently made the trek over the weekend. The final installment in the Batman trilogy directed by Christopher Nolan grossed over $64 million over the weekend, landing atop the box office for a second week. Another holdover, Ice Age: Continental Drift took second over the weekend, grossing a cool $13.3 million. 1. The Dark Knight Rises Gross: $64,075,000 (Cume: $289,086,000) Screens: 4,404 (PSA: $14,549) Weeks: 2 (Change: – 60%) IMAX cashed in at $9 million over the weekend for a North American total of $38 million. The feature grossed $122.1 million overseas. 2. Ice Age: Continental Drift (3-D, Animated) Gross: $13,300,000 (Cume: $114,847,214) Screens: 3,869 (PSA: $3,438) Weeks: 3 (Change: -35%) Perhaps not a shocker, this is the top choice for families. 3. The Watch Gross: $13 million Screens: 3,168 (PSA: $4,104) New The Fox comedy only appealed to some moviegoers in its first weekend outing. 4. Step Up: Revolution (3-D) Gross: $11.8 million Screens: 2,567 (PSA: $4,597) New Also a so-so opening at best for this newcomer. With a production budget of $33 million this title has a ways to go to break even. 5. Ted Gross: $7,353,150 (Cume: $193,618,750) Screens: 3,129 (PSA: $2,350) Weeks: 5 (Change: – 27%) The R-rated comedy continues to attract crowds well into its release. 6. The Amazing Spider-Man (3-D) Gross: $6.8 million (Cume: $242,053,000) Screens: 3,160 (PSA: $2,152) Weeks: 4 (Change: – 38%) 7. Brave (3-D, Animated) Gross: $4,237,000 (Cume: $217,261,000) Screens: 2,551 (PSA: $1,661) Weeks: 6 (Change: -30%) 8. Magic Mike Gross: $2.58 million (Cume: $107,587,000) Screens: 2,075 (PSA: $1,243) Weeks: 5 (Change: – 40%) 9. Savages Gross: $1,753,360 (Cume: $43,898,930) Screens: 1,414 (PSA: $1,240) Weeks: 4 (Change: – 48%) 10. Moonrise Kingdom Gross: $1,387,359 (Cume: $38,396,927) Screens: 853 (PSA: $1,626) Weeks: 10 (Change: – 24%) The Wes Anderson-directed feature has had strong staying power and one of the summer’s strongest specialty releases.

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The Dark Knight Rises Heads to No. 1 in the Box Office

Yes, Yes, My Precious! Hobbit Trilogy Confirmed

That sound you hear is the cheering of  hairy-footed Tolkien addicts everywhere. At 11:30 a.m. Monday morning, the lord of The Lord of the Rings franchise Peter Jackson confirmed via his Facebook page that The Hobbit would indeed be a trilogy. “It is only at the end of a shoot that you finally get the chance to sit down and have a look at the film you have made,” Jackson wrote. “Recently Fran [Walsh], Phil [Boyens] and I did just this when we watched for the first time an early cut of the first movie — and a large chunk of the second. We were really pleased with the way the story was coming together, in particular, the strength of the characters and the cast who have brought them to life.  All of which gave rise to a simple question: do we take this chance to tell more of the tale? And the answer from our perspective as the filmmakers, and as fans, was an unreserved ‘yes.'” “We know how much of the story of Bilbo Baggins, the Wizard Gandalf, the Dwarves of Erebor, the rise of the Necromancer, and the Battle of Dol Guldur will remain untold if we do not take this chance,” Jackson continued.  “The richness of the story of  The Hobbit , as well as some of the related material in the appendices of  The Lord of the Rings , allows us to tell the full story of the adventures of Bilbo Baggins and the part he played in the sometimes dangerous, but at all times exciting, history of Middle-earth.” You could almost hear trumpets sounding when Jackson added: “So, without further ado and on behalf of New Line Cinema, Warner Bros. Pictures, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Wingnut Films, and the entire cast and crew of “The Hobbit” films, I’d like to announce that two films will become three. It has been an unexpected journey indeed, and in the words of Professor Tolkien himself, “a tale that grew in the telling.” Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.

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Yes, Yes, My Precious! Hobbit Trilogy Confirmed

Oranges Takes Neighborly Scandal to a New Coast

Suburban America has its share of Oranges . Orange County, CA, probably the richest and best known of the lot (there are of course fellow O.C. namesakes in New York and Florida) has had its hare in the spotlight with the original Real Housewives , not to mention that teen/young-adult primetime soap The O.C. and who could forget MTV’s Laguna Beach . But watch, out, there’s a new Orange grabbing the spotlight, and it even grabbed O.C. star Adam Brody who plays the successful son of a couple living in a leafy neighborhood in West Orange, NJ. The Oranges promises to take a bite out of the upper middle-class intrigue market. But Brody appears to be incidental in the block scandal taking place on – you might have guessed, Orange Drive. The quick plot goes something like this: Two dads are morning jog-BFFs who live across the street from each other. One daughter comes come for a holiday after breaking up with her boyfriend. Instead of going for the neighbor’s good looking age-appropriate son (that would be Brody) she takes a liking for the dad – a big uh-oh! And even a bigger problem, the neighbor’s dad goes for it… Here’s the official synopsis and trailer below : David and Paige Walling (Hugh Laurie, Catherine Keener) and Terry and Cathy Ostroff (Oliver Platt, Allison Janney) are best friends and neighbors living on Orange Drive in suburban New Jersey.  Their comfortable existence goes awry when prodigal daughter Nina Ostroff (Leighton Meester), newly broken up with her fiancé Ethan (Sam Rosen), returns home for Thanksgiving after a five-year absence.  Rather than developing an interest in the successful son of her neighbors, Toby Walling (Adam Brody), which would please both families, it’s her parents’ best friend David who captures Nina’s attention. When the connection between Nina and David becomes undeniable, everyone’s lives are thrown into upheaval, particularly Vanessa Walling’s (Alia Shawkat), Nina’s childhood best friend.  It’s not long before the ramifications of the affair begin to work on all of the family members in unexpected and hilarious ways, leading everyone to reawaken to their lives, reassess what it means to be happy, and realize that sometimes what looks like a disaster turns out to be the thing we need.

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Oranges Takes Neighborly Scandal to a New Coast

Michael Phelps, One Landmark, and Three More Olympic Athletes Whose Stories Could Be Movies

Cue John Williams’ “Olympic Fanfare and Theme” — or if you don’t want to be reminded of Ewoks, the Clash’s “London Calling.” The 2012 Summer Games officially begin tonight with a Danny Boyle-directed opening ceremony that, according to ABC News, will include a reference to James Bond and 120 farm animals. The spectacle won’t end there. Unless this year’s games totally suck, the next two weeks will be rife with emotional movie-worthy moments of victory, defeat and the U.S. Women’s Volleyball team’s hot bikinis. The Olympics have yet to produce a truly outstanding biographical movie, but hope springs eternal. And in the interest of putting a well-traveled torch under Hollywood’s ass, here are Movieline’s top five picks for Olympics-themed movie biopic hopefuls in ascending order. 5. Michael Phelps: Arguably the greatest American Olympic athlete of all time, Phelps has won 16 medals and broken or tied all kinds of records. He’s got a physique millions of guys would kill for, and after his showing in the 2008 games in Beijing, he rocketed to fame, earning a Speedo-load of endorsements and Sports Illustrated’s 2008 Sportsman of the Year honor. Once the cheering stopped, however, Phelps packed on 25 pounds and lost at least his Kellogg’s endorsement when he was photographed smoking a bong. (Perhaps that had something to do with the weight gain as well.) A lack of real dramatic tension might be a problem in any movie about Phelps, but the Summer Games — which the 27-year-old athlete says will be his last — may provide the needed drama. Phelps will compete in seven swimming events in London. Who should play him: Adam Driver ( Girls ). He was born to play this part. Who should direct: Josh Gordon and Will Speck. Their upcoming film, The Pool , is about a swim instructor, and Blades of Glory showed they can do sports films. 4. Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani: The judo competitor will make history by becoming the first homegrown Saudi Arabian woman to represent her country in London. The Saudis have refused to send female participants in the past but relented this year thanks to international pressure. Shahrkhani did not qualify for the games, but instead got a special invitation from the International Olympic Committee. Her participation will make the London Olympics the first in which every country will have female competitors. Just 18 years old, Shahrkhani has trained almost exclusively in her hometown of Mecca. She is scheduled to compete in the over-78-kilogram judo competition, but CBS News reported that the Olympic Federation won’t permit her to wear a hijab (head scarf) during the competition, which may force her to bow out. Who Should Play Her: Hailee Steinfeld. An unlikely choice, but the kid’s got chops. She’d have to do what De Niro did in Raging Bull and pack on some weight though. Who Should Direct: Marc Forster ( The Kite Runner ) 3. The Olympic Village: If the Village could talk, what stories it would tell! Save for the filthy rich tennis players and basketball stars who can afford to stay in one of London’s pricey hotels, the majority of Olympic athletes will spend their time hanging here when they’re not competing. And when the games wind down, the Village transforms into a hedonist’s paradise. Stories of booze-fueled all-night ragers and the kind of casual, athletic sex that would make a Secret Service agent blush are par for the course. It’s The Hangover starring world class athletes. Who Should Star: An ensemble cast that should include Ryan Reynolds, Allison Williams, Channing Tatum, James Franco and Danny McBride. Who Should Direct: Steve Pink. With Hot Tub Time Machine , he showed that he’s effective with large casts and comedies that end up amounting to a lot more than a bunch of laughs. 3. Oscar Pistorius: Thirty years after Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner opened, the “Blade Runner” will make Olympic history in London.The South African sprinter, who became a double amputee when he was only 11 months old, will become the first man in the history of the games to compete with prosthetic legs. In 2008, Pistorius won the right to compete in the Olympics when a ban on athletes with prosthetic legs was overturned, but he failed to make the South African team. He’ll compete in the 400-meter run with his artificial carbon-fiber “Cheetah Flex-Foot” limbs — and not without controversy. Some claim the prosthetics give him an advantage over runners with flesh-and-bone legs. Who Should Play Him: Ryan Kwanten ( True Blood ) He’s got the looks and build to play an athlete. He’s also an Aussie, which should make it a breeze to perfect Pistorius’ South African accent. Who Should Direct: Robert Zemeckis ( Forrest Gump ) He’s nimble with CGI, which will be a must, and he knows how to put a rousing, human story on the screen. 1. Lopez Lomong: In 2010, New Line announced that it was developing a picture about the 27-year-old Lomong’s extraordinary life, and we certainly hope it makes it to the cineplex. (A New Line rep tells Movieline the project is no longer at the studio. Another industry source says the picture is in turnaround.) Until then, we’ll make do with the Visa commercial that’s currently running. One of the “Lost Boys” of Sudan, Lomong was just six years old when he was abducted by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army. He and three other boys escaped through a hole in their prison camp fence and ran for days until they reached Kenya. At 16, Lomong relocated to the U.S. after an essay he wrote to a Catholic charity spurred the organization to bring him stateside. He eventually found himself at Northern Arizona University where he became an NCAA champion and last month he qualified for his second Olympics in the 5,000-meter run. In 2008 in Beijing, he was the American flagbearer for the Opening Ceremonies. Who Should Play Him: Omar Sy. The French actor is in his mid-30s, but his powerful performance in The Intouchables suggests he could do justice to Lomong’s story. Who Should Direct: Tom McCarthy. Just watch The Visitor and you will agree. The 2012 Olympics officially kick off in London tonight. Which athletes with great stories have caught your eye? Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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Michael Phelps, One Landmark, and Three More Olympic Athletes Whose Stories Could Be Movies

REVIEW: Searching For Sugar Man, The Extraordinary True Tale of a Mythic Cult Music Hero Reborn

Searching For Sugar Man , which tells the improbable story of how a singer-songwriter named Sixto Rodriguez rose, fell, and found superstardom in what amounts to a parallel universe, is an elegy in several keys. One is clear and familiar: Upon his excited discovery by a noted producer, the music business circa 1969 ate Rodriguez for breakfast, and a talent still acknowledged by his peers went to waste. The second is more personal, and although Swedish director Malik Bendjelloul leaves a distinct and ultimately frustrating berth around the man at the center of his documentary, it becomes poignantly clear that an abbreviated resume and a family to feed didn’t keep Rodriguez from living an artist’s life. And then, perhaps most resonant and abstract, there is the film’s charting of the confluence of circumstances that can create a legend and shape lives – a confluence whose particularities are less and less possible in an information-glutted age. Sugar Man opens with much but fleeting stylistic fanfare. Over a blend of vivid landscapes, a steady-cam tour of bleak and snowy Detroit, moody recreations of key scenes and a neat effect that moves from image to illustration and back, various players (beginning with a Cape Town record-store owner called “Sugar”) recount the film’s heavily fragmented story of a mysterious musician out of Detroit who, South African legend has it, staged “probably the most grotesque suicide in rock history.” Why “South African legend,” you might ask, and the answer is what takes Sugar Man ’s story from sad but common to extraordinary. In many ways that story belongs to the men who stand in for what was apparently a solid chunk of the South African populace in the 1970s, when apartheid was in full swing and the country was under totalitarian rule. A hilarious origin story has an American girl bringing a single Rodriguez album into the country, patient zero-style, with bootlegs and label requests proliferating from there. With sizable cuts from Rodriguez’s two studio albums of Dylan-esque folk rock accompanying them, those men (musicians and music fans) describe how songs like “I Wonder” and “Anti-establishment Blues” sparked something – a glimmer of rebellion, the comfort of fellow feeling – in them. Elsewhere referred to as an “inner city poet,” if Rodriguez’s lyrics lack a certain prosody they are written squarely and straightforwardly in the protest tradition of the time. A grassroots process that had to sidestep censors and a heavily restricted media helped foment a folk hero in the public’s imagination. Rodriguez, we are told, is bigger than Elvis in South Africa, and certainly bigger than the Rolling Stones. His sonorous tenor is sweet but strong and pleasingly clear – somewhere between Cat Stevens and Neil Diamond. Even so, the truth is that, though skilled and even singular, of the songs we hear nothing astonishes or even comes close; a couple sound too dated to be great. But then we’re not supposed to be evaluating his music for signs of greatness, not really. Perhaps under different circumstances, like the ones in South Africa, he might sound different; he would be different. Much discussed is the lack of personal details that fueled the Rodriguez enigma; his mystery was part of what made him great. Bendjelloul upholds that idea, whether he likes it or not, after a rambling exposition of how a couple of amateur Cape Town sleuths finally tracked the very much alive Rodriguez down. Mexican by birth and extremely reticent by nature, Rodriguez is an uneasy interview; we learn more about him just watching his delicate form move down a snow-laden sidewalk like an exotic but flightless, black-coated bird trapped in a crummily ordinary world. Interviews with his three daughters are sweet but a little unsatisfying, and in its final third – which details his triumphant arrival in South Africa and introduction to an adoring audience of twenty thousand – Sugar Man falters. Various threads of the story (including the rather major question of how an estimated half a million records sold resulted in zero royalties) are left to fray. It isn’t clear that the director recognized the most prominent among them: Bendjelloul is enamored not with the deeply organic nature but the novelty of this “instant” success story. And yet Sugar Man is most interesting when it touches on the conditions that combined to draw a cult hero out of some decent music and a generously enabled, imagination-firing mystique. I imagine even the wise and thoughtful Rodriguez himself would insist that more than one man’s third act justice, this is a story about time and a swiftly vanishing context. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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REVIEW: Searching For Sugar Man, The Extraordinary True Tale of a Mythic Cult Music Hero Reborn

REVIEW: Ultraviolent, Shock-Seeking Killer Joe Is A Pulp Fiction Paradox

Slick and mean and full of piss and chicken grease, Killer Joe has worse manners than its deadly, courtly antihero. But in its own way and to its own detriment, William Friedkin ’s splattery, southern gothic return to the screen seeks to amuse as well as shake and stir. What begins as a set of open provocations and genre tweaks propping up the story of a trashily blended Texas family’s encounter with an alpha hitman takes a turn through Coen and Lynch Lanes before winding up at the corner of Friedkin and Peckinpah. There a trailer ignites with violence and the tone of alternately abject and mordant depravity begins flailing like a rogue firehose. That the Smiths are low, stupid people is easily understood, but Friedkin hardly tires of reminding us. Killer Joe opens on the middle of a stormy Texas night, and the wailing and window-banging of a fuck-up named Chris ( Emile Hirsch ), who is locked out of the family’s trailer. When his stepmother Sharla (Gina Gershon) finally responds, Chris (and the audience) comes face to fat, mossy minge with her naked crotch. Chris’s complaints find no truck with his exceptionally dense, defeated dad Ansel (Thomas Haden Church), who echoes Sharla’s involuted logic about not being expecting to find her stepson on the other side of the door. It feels unpromising that what could be a funny gag gets lost in the scene-flattening commotion of idiocy, which too often gets cranked so high little else gets through. The Smiths have all kinds of boundary issues, not least when it comes to Dottie (Juno Temple), the gauzy baby doll daughter with a couple of little pink screws loose. Dottie sleepwalks, and either has crazy good hearing or crazy-girl intuition, because she cottons to Chris’s plan to kill their deadbeat mother (who remains deadbeat; we only get a brief glimpse of her corpse) from the moment he privately proposes it to Ansel. In deep to some coke dealers, Chris has word of his mother’s fifty thousand dollar life insurance payout (to Dottie) and a line on a police officer/hitman named Killer Joe Cooper ( Matthew McConaughey ). No good can come of such a scheme, of course, and no good does. Perhaps the family’s shouty moron shtick is designed to make the arrival of a glossy, black-clad sociopath feel more like a relief. McConaughey has toned down his surf bum beam (and highlights) for the role: in his bad sheriff getup he’s a cold-eyed buck with asses to stomp. Sharing a tight frame with Joe in a typical low-angle shot, Hirsch becomes a mini-pony of a man. But it’s McConaughey’s scenes with Temple that form the twisted center of the movie; they make a pair as riveting as it is unlikely. That it is not as simple as beast-meets-beast of prey is largely a credit to the actors – each exudes an unnerving charisma that enwraps the other and together they create the movie’s only dramatically persuasive atmosphere. It feels a little wrong saying that, given the terms of their relationship. When Chris and Ansel can’t cough up half of Joe’s fee in advance, he proposes taking Dottie as “a retainer.” Because the Smiths’ is a desperate world dulled into moral nihilism by poverty and other indignities, Ansel’s response to the idea of pimping his virgin daughter out to a hired killer is that it “might just do her some good.” We feel scared for Dottie, though after being soothed out of her initial upset she doesn’t seem that scared herself, which of course is really scary. The lead up to Joe’s claiming of his collateral and the chillingly erotic scene that results feels like Friedkin hitting a mesmerizing stride. Instead it forms a peak in what slackens into another, if notably performed and perverse, pulp fiction paradox: Though desperate to shock, its success depends on our desensitization. ( Killer Joe received an NC-17 rating and is perhaps the latest rival to the kink and violent degradations of 2010’s The Killer Inside Me .) Much of the film takes place in close quarters, spaces well parsed by Friedkin’s camera and imbued with a sense of confined desperation instead of plain old claustrophobia. Pulitzer Prize-winner Tracy Letts adapted the script from his own play (this is Friedkin’s second Letts adaptation, after 2006’s Bug ), and as often as a dark, stage-y laugh line falls flat, Joe’s embroidered (and then fearsome) tones and Dottie’s loaded non sequiturs (including her casual mention, after things have gone miserably awry, that it might still all work out — “as long as I don’t get mad”) seem to land exactly how and where they’re meant to be. It seems likely it was the creepy sexual content and not the horrific violence that earned the MPAA’s admonishment, a bias Killer Joe seems to repeat in moving from its glimpses of genuine human darkness toward the more generic drawing of bright red blood. Killer Joe is in limited release Friday. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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REVIEW: Ultraviolent, Shock-Seeking Killer Joe Is A Pulp Fiction Paradox

Cheating, Apologetic Kristen Stewart ‘Has Been Neutered’

In the wake of the Kristen Stewart cheating bomb that dropped today , at least one PR pro thinks Stewart’s subsequent apology stinks of forced reparations . Meanwhile, gossip maven Lainey Lui zeroes in on the repercussions of the Twilight star issuing such a perplexingly earnest-sounding mea culpa after years of fiercely protecting her private life from outside eyes: “Kristen Stewart has been neutered. She’s officially owned now. She belongs to them. And she belongs to us.” Continued, from Lainey Gossip : “You don’t want to answer questions about your private life? But you just gave me every reason to ask about your private life because you told ME how sorry you are, sobbing through your words, that you may have ruined your love. One day you’re diving into the dumpster avoiding photographers when I want to see a picture of you holding hands with your boyfriend, the next day you’re begging me to understand that you made a bad judgement call, essentially pleading for my forgiveness. Who turns down power when it’s presented to them? Certainly not me. Certainly not us.” Lainey’s been covering the Twilight beat within the larger celebrity world for years now, and she’s always come across as one of the realest-talking gossip fixtures in the biz. Here she nails Stewart’s PR predicament precisely on its head: In a nutshell, one of Hollywood’s most hounded celebrities has uncharacteristically and without prompting pulled back the curtains on her private life — and how — and judging by how her People exclusive apology reads it seems like she was thinking about as strategically as a plaintive, emotional teenager, not the megastar who just months ago swore she didn’t care about those who “want to turn truth into shit.” What’s fascinating here to celeb-watchers is that Stewart felt she needed to apologize publicly at all after becoming quite adept at protecting her private life. Then again, that kind of 24-7 privacy-guarding would be exhausting for anyone. But if anyone demanded an apology, it wasn’t necessarily the fans, though it likely helped stem the tide of vicarious betrayal many have vocalized. So why do it? [ Lainey Gossip ] Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .

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Cheating, Apologetic Kristen Stewart ‘Has Been Neutered’