Reincarnated begins, appropriately, with a big cloud of smoke. Over the course of the documentary, which premiered today in Toronto, rapper Snoop Dogg (real name: Calvin Broadus) transitions into his reggae-focused new alter ego Snoop Lion , dropping classic lines left and right. Will Snoop Lion be around for long? “I’m Snoop Motherfuckin’ Dogg till the day I die,” he told reporters , “but at the same time when I’m making my reggae music I’m in the light of the Lion.” Well then! Get to know the Lion a little better with 9 Snoop Lion quotables from Reincarnated . 1. ” Reggae is a form of hip hop and hip hop is a form of reggae .” 2. Sample lyrics of Snoop Lion’s first reggae recording, “Smoke Da Weed”: ” Smoke da weed / Every day / Don’t smoke da seed …” 3. Snoop, after revealing that he stole from his white school friends: ” You all know you shouldn’t have let me in your motherfuckin’ houses .” 4. Snoop’s cousin Daz: ” I’m smoking a blunt in the jungle! ” 5. To reggae legend Bunny Wailer: “W e want to bless you with some California herbs that we have .” 6. ” My songs are too hard…I know Obama wants me to come to the White House, but what the fuck can I perform? ” 7. ” I want to be loved while I’m here. And the only way to get love is to give love. ” 8. Snoop on turning 40: ” I’m wiser, or a bit wiser. Like Budweiser. ” 9. Not a quote, but a fun fact: Snoop’s Rastafarian name is “Berhane,” which means “light.” Stay tuned for more on Reincarnated . check out Movieline’s ongoing coverage of the Toronto Film Festival. Follow Frank Digiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Days after his empty chair speech made Clint Eastwood a polarizing symbol of the Republican National Convention, hometown paper The Carmel Pine Cone scored an exclusive follow-up with the 82 year-old former Mayor. His explanation? He made it up on the fly moments before taking the stage. You don’t say! “They vet most of the people, but I told them, ‘You can’t do that with me, because I don’t know what I’m going to say’… There was a stool there, and some fella kept asking me if I wanted to sit down. When I saw the stool sitting there, it gave me the idea. I’ll just put the stool out there and I’ll talk to Mr. Obama and ask him why he didn’t keep all of the promises he made to everybody.” [ Carmel Pine Cone via USA Today ]
Prancing around in a fluorescent bikini while going on a partying and crime-fueled rampage through the so-called “red neck riviera” — that could be the one sentence log-line for Toronto’s Spring Breakers , which arrived in North America after its first premiere last week in Venice . Fascination with former Disney star Selena Gomez ‘s romp through the new film in a not-quite-so-squeaky-clean role continued on this side of the pond but Gomez, director Harmony Korine and fellow stars James Franco , Vanessa Hudgens , Ashley Benson and Rachel Korine provided a few racy laughs of their own in Canada’s biggest city Friday. Harmony Korine even joked that a few rugged gentlemen on spring break were taken by Gomez’s presence while they shot the feature. “All these thick-necked jock dudes were rubbing up against Selena,” he said. The cast said they had themselves never been on a spring break, but Harmony Korine surrounded the cast with people doing just that while they were in St. Petersburg, FL in what Rachel Korine described as a “youth rite of passage.” But before heading to the shoot and to those soon-to-be-famous bikinis, the women in the film did a bit of a pre-party get-together to set the mood for the film and at the request of Harmony Korine. Vanessa Hudgens hinted that the group likely took on some of the trappings of spring break before heading off for their celluloid version in front of the camera. “In the beginning, we hung out before shooting. We were girls being completely raw and we freed ourselves and did what we wanted. We were able to be completely free and push each other.” James Franco first came on board on the film, speaking with Korine about the concept well before actual shooting began. He crafted his character, who is a local thug that bails the girls out of jail after they hold up a dining joint in order to fund their spring break, by using props and music sent over by Korine. “Harmony is a master at finding locations and people and having them add texture [to his films],” he said. “He sent me music and images which helped me create my character. Looks and surfaces are very important in this film.” “But I think we made him our bitch!” Hudgens shot back with a laugh. As in Venice, Gomez was peppered with questions about her Disney entree to stardom and how a film like Spring Breakers will factor into her fan base, but the 20 year-old actress said that she decided to go for it, while acknowledging the role may be off-putting for some of her young admirers. “When my series ended, I was invited to do a couple of films. I thought the independent film route would be best for me, and I decided that if I’m going to do it, I’d like to do it with Harmony.” Continuing she said, “The biggest challenge is that I have a younger generation of fans who follow my music, shows and clothing line. Everything I do is for them and this may not be so accessible to them. But the other side is that people put you in a box and it is a challenge for me because some may not take me seriously because of the brand I have — that I’m fortunate to have — but it’s also about doing things that I just want to do for me.” Gomez was the first of the women cast in the film which Harmony Korine said he imagined long before writing the screenplay. He auditioned Gomez in his living room in Nashville, TN but worried that he might scare her off before they had a chance to work together. “Selena auditioned in my living room. When she came down to Nashville, I flipped over all of this crazy art I have in my house because I didn’t want to spook her,” he said. “I think he thought I was super, super Christian so he was hiding everything,” laughed Gomez. Read more from the Toronto Film Fest. Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
I slid into a booth at the Four Seasons recently to chat with Rebel Wilson , the comedienne and rising scene-stealer of this week’s Bachelorette and the upcoming toe-tapper Pitch Perfect , smitten with her work in Bridesmaids , in which she turned a brief turn as Kristen Wiig’s terrible British roommate into one of the more indelible comic Hollywood debuts in recent memory. Over the course of our conversation about everything — her dog show past, her law degree, gangsta rap , reality TV, her Bring It On obsession, WWII-era international relations, and why she considered The Grove her “happy place” when she moved from her native Australia to L.A. two years ago — I realized that Rebel Wilson is, indeed, the most interesting woman in Hollywood. She’s so naturally funny she gets laughs even when playing the straight woman, as she does in Leslye Headland ‘s R-rated Bachelorette (in limited release today) opposite the bad-girl trifecta of Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan, and Isla Fisher. In a wicked reversal of fortune it’s Wilson’s former freak/chubby bride-to-be Becky who’s eclipsed her cooler and prettier friends in life — and, even as they inadvertently threaten to ruin her wedding, Becky’s naive loyalty underscores the point: Mean girls finish last. Wilson’s knack for memorable characters, honed by years in Australian TV and a stranger-than-fiction upbringing (“I try to do it take the tragic things in my life and make them into comedy”) led her to October’s college a capella comedy Pitch Perfect , in which she plays as a confident Aussie student who calls herself “Fat Amy.” “In the script the character is called ‘Fat Amy,’ so it’s really hard to send it to actresses,” joked producer Elizabeth Banks. “Rebel recognized what an iconic character Fat Amy would be.” Next she appears in Chris Colfer’s coming-of-age debut Struck By Lightning and Michael Bay’s Pain & Gain . Wilson’s also set to write, produce, and star in her own ABC sitcom, Super Fun Night , working with Conan O’Brien. “It’s about three girls who live in New York,” she explained. “They’re just very nerdy and they really don’t have a social life … they used to have a thing called Friday Night Fun Night where they stayed indoors and watched DVDs and ate pizza. Super Fun Night is their new concept as they try to become more cool and popular. It’s kind of based on me.” It really feels like you’re in the midst of a big moment in your career, with Bachelorette and Pitch Perfect coming out… Ahh! It has been pretty good. When I came to America I thought, wouldn’t it be awesome to get into one movie? And then I get cast in Bridesmaids as my first job here and it’s such a huge movie. Even though sometimes to me it doesn’t feel fast, because I have been here two years now, I’ve done eight movies in that time so there are days and weeks where to me it doesn’t feel fast at all. But all my agents, who represent super famous people, are like, ‘Rebel, this is, like, really fast!’ [Laughs] And it has turned out like the dream — I couldn’t have even dreamt that things would go this well. I don’t know how often you look at your own Wikipedia page or Google yourself, but your bio is the stuff of legend. Is it? I guess my life is interesting. Tell me this is all true: Your parents were dog showers? Yes. Like Best in Show ? Exactly like Best In Show . Beagles. And it was so embarrassing, but what I try to do is take the tragic things in my life and make them into comedy. I used to hate the dog show — it was so boring and it was so dorky, but now I look back on it fondly. Every weekend we’d go to the dog shows and show the dogs, but now I’m like, I guess it was an interesting environment to grow up in… it was a weird, competitive environment of this group of people who loved dogs and they’d wear weird outfits and go to weird places out in the country to do these dog shows. [Laughs] But it was an interesting upbringing. More interesting than most. It wasn’t like I was a child actor who got pimped out by their mother to do commercials. You also have the coolest name ever. Did you always love it? Oh, thank you — but not always. I went to a Christian high school so I went under my middle name. I don’t think they would have accepted me in the school — ‘This is Rebel ’… so I have two middle names, Melanie Elizabeth, and I went under those. But Rebel’s way cooler. Another true fact: Your siblings were on The Amazing Race ? Yes! The first ever Australian series, which is exactly the same as the American one. And they came in last! My sister was on the show five days and vomited five times on camera. It was pretty funny because my family, we love reality shows like The Amazing Race and Survivor , and so when they had the opportunity to go on we were like, ‘Yay, you’re probably going to win!’ And we thought up all of this strategy, but they came in last. They said doing it is so different from watching it on TV. It’s so hard. They get no sleep, no food, it was a really hard experience. [Laughs] So your real life is almost stranger than fiction. Did you always want to end up here in Hollywood? As a kid I never thought I’d be an actress. Never, ever, ever, no way. I was really shy — bordering on social disorder shy — and I was really academic. Really good at math, I had weird abilities, so everyone thought I’d be a lawyer because I did really good at school. Did you want to be a lawyer? Well, I actually have a law degree. I’ve done that at the same time as acting, which was really hard — I should have quit, but then it took a lot of work to get into that law school after high school so I was like, I may as well do it on the side. So I’d often be filming or doing plays and sometimes I’d have to miss my law exams because I was in a show in Australia, but they said ok, you can come back next week and do the exam, which was cool. I’m like, ‘Um, I’m filming this movie with Nicolas Cage — I kind of can’t come to the exam…’ But I literally had to attend 80% of the classes to get my law degree, so it was really hard. Often I’d fly into law school because I’d be in another state, and have to fly in for a day of law school. It was difficult. Has that law degree come in handy in your show biz career? When I first started, I did negotiate a lot of my own contracts. People look at me and they see my funny, stupid characters and they have no idea. Sometimes when I say yeah, I could practice as a lawyer if I wanted to, people are like, “What? Who’d want you as a lawyer?” I would totally hire you as my lawyer . I’d be good. I’d crack good jokes, I’d be all friendly with the judge. I think it could work. How did Bachelorette come to you? Another girl, Casey Wilson, was actually cast as the bride but she was on a TV show so she couldn’t come to New York and film it. They had all this amazing cast in place already, Kirsten [Dunst] and Lizzy [Caplan] and Isla [Fisher] and James Marsden, and they were looking for a girl to play the bride. Obviously I think they wanted a girl who was bigger, for the “Pig Face” stuff to work, and I read the script and it wasn’t an easy fit, because normally I play the wacky character and not the straight girl. This could kind of be a challenge because Becky has to be the more grounded straight character. It’s a fun reversal, to see you playing it straight and Kirsten, Lizzy, and Isla running with the jokes. Yeah! And yet sometimes I think because of my delivery I get a few laughs in the film, but I’m not playing for laughs. It’s not like I’m in a studio comedy where I’m putting all my improvised jokes in. This was based on a play, and it gets very serious in parts. These are real quality actors in this! So I just try to play it quite genuinely. Theirs is a much different tone to your character; Becky is clearly aware a lot of the time that these girlfriends of hers are real bitches and kind of terrible. They are mean to her, sometimes! But she’s the fourth wheel in a group of four girls, so she does think they’re cooler than her and wants to hang out with them. But at the point of the movie where the movie starts, she’s got this amazing fiancé and she’s going to have a really good life, and those girls who were probably way cooler than her in high school, the tables have turned — little Becky is now on top of the heap! The mean girls get a comeuppance. Yeah — I always think in real life, eventually they do. If you are really mean and super bitchy eventually that’s going to come back to haunt you. It’s tempting to juxtapose your work in Bachelorette with your performance in Bridesmaids . Two wedding movies! I was actually in another wedding movie, called A Few Best Men , that comes out in the U.K. this month. With Xavier Samuel, of Twilight fame. Yeah, of Twilight fame! He’s very cute, and a really nice guy. And Olivia Newton-John played my mother! In that one I played the sister of the bride. But in Bridesmaids I had nothing to do with the wedding. I was really curious — I think I only had four scenes in Bridesmaids and I was wondering if that would be enough to make an impact. I remember Jonah Hill was in one scene in 40-Year-Old Virgin , and that was enough for people to go, “Oh my god, who is that guy, he’s super hilarious!” But people adored [ Bridesmaids ] because it was so great and I booked five movies straight off the back of that as soon as it came out. That was the first time I ever saw you and I remember watching your scenes thinking, is this girl for real? So clearly it was an effective turn. [Laughs] That’s what happened in Australia! My very first character I was famous for was this Greek drug-dealing gangster girl, and people thought I was that girl. People were scared that there was a girl like that out on the streets! I try to play things convincingly, so I tried to be the British girl that was really annoying and a bit psycho, and try to annoy Kristen Wiig. What was your experience working in Bachelorette with folks like Kirsten, who’s not necessarily known for comedy? I mean, Bring It On was hilarious. Oh my god, I stand corrected. Bring It On was hilarious. Have you seen the musical? I was going to go with Kiki [Kirsten Dunst] to see Bring It On: The Musical , but she was busy. I bought tickets and everything, but my sister went instead. I didn’t get to go because I said if Kiki’s not going, I’m not going. I think that is the way to see Bring It On: The Musical — sitting next to Kirsten Dunst. Yes! I called up and bought the tickets and said to the guy, “It’s actually for me and for an actress, Kirsten Dunst… who was in the original Bring It On . We are coming to see the musical.” And he’s like, “She’s not in the musical. She was in the movie.” I’m like, yeah, I know. I was trying to say this is a big deal, you’ve got the original Torrance coming into this show, but it backfired. [Laughs] Was it tempting as a Bring It On fan to quote that movie constantly to Kirsten on set? I harassed her every day. I was like, “Remember when you did this bit, and that bit…” and I asked her all the questions. I’m fascinated by that movie, I just thought it was so good. I don’t watch many movies twice because I have a really good memory so to watch movies again is really boring to me, but Bring It On I’ve seen five or six times and I just love it. One time I was walking in Los Feliz and I saw the girl who plays Missy, Eliza [Dushku], and I didn’t know what to say! I was like, oh my god, what do I do? I should have gone up to her and said, “Remember that bit where you were auditioning for the Toros and they didn’t think you were good and you did the backflips?” [Laughs] I’m the biggest dork.
Yeah, you’re gonna want to buy the October issue of British Vogue — if only for Christa D’Souza’s bewildered recollection of the one time Kristen Stewart opened up to her, a month before le scandale , during a Parisian smoke break: “‘My God, I’m so in love with my boyfriend. I wish he was here now. I think I want to have his babies. God, I miss him. I love the way he smells. And him me. Like, he loves to lick under my armpits. I don’t get this obsession with washing the smell off. That smell of someone you love. Don’t you think it’s the whole point?’ Looking back, the exchange still feels surreal. It took place just three weeks before those incriminating pictures were allegedly taken. Was she even talking about Pattinson? Was she having on me? Who knows? ” [ Vogue UK via iSubscribe ]
An outbreak of zombie-like symptoms plagues the residents of a waterfront town in The Bay , but I can’t get over the fact that Barry Levinson , the Oscar-winning director of Rain Man and the maker of such resume-tipping hits as Diner , Good Morning, Vietnam , Bugsy , and Wag the Dog is doing a found footage creature feature that doesn’t seem to offer terribly much new or fresh within the genre. Are things that bad, Barry? If you’d told me The Bay was simply another gimmicky wannabe horror hit from the makers of Paranormal Activity I wouldn’t have blinked twice. Maybe there’s some brilliant layered examination of humanity and the environment in how the nice white folks of Chesapeake Bay are being infested with gross waterborne roly poly bugs. This man made The Natural ! Sigh. I’m sure if interrogated, Levinson would cite some itch to explore new genres and filmmaking styles or step outside his comfort zone or whatever. His last theatrical release was the disappointing What Just Happened , and before that he made the Robin Willians comedy Man of the Year . Even that Gotti biopic is looking like The Godfather compared to this. But we shall see: The Bay screens at the Toronto Film Festival and opens in theaters on November 2. Add your thoughts below and while we’re at it, name your favorite Levinson flick that doesn’t involve flesh-eating bugs and shaky home video. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Born to Die singer Lana Del Rey didn’t exactly conquer the music world with her polarizing entree into showbiz (her SNL appearance will go down as one of the stiffest performances in the history of television), so maybe channeling all that smoky ’60s-tinged mannequin angst into another medium is the ticket: “When I was starting, I had a vision of being a writer for film and that’s what I am doing now,” Del Rey (real name: Lizzy Grant) told Vogue Australia. “I’m so happy… Hopefully I will branch into film work and stay there. That will be my happy place.” [ Vogue AU via NME , Screen Junkies ]
I’ll leave the jokes about how Monsters, Inc 3D has a new eye-popping look to Billy Crystal and, instead, ask if you remember where your head was at in November 2001 when this Pixar classic was released. If you lived in New York City and had a young child (as I did), you were probably extremely grateful for Monsters, Inc. because, even if your kid was too young to grasp what had happened at Ground Zero, you were not. Sitting in the cool dark of a movie theater with my four-year-old and watching this funny film was a brief, welcome respite from the daily barrage of news reports about terrorists at our border, toxins in the air and the heavy layer of grief that blanketed the city. Monsters, Inc. made my kid laugh, and that made me laugh. And exhale. Monsters, Inc. 3D will be re-released on December 19. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
The premise sounds like an Ingmar Bergman film,. starring Liv Ullmann . On Oct. 1, the surviving member of the venerated on- and off-screen couple is slated to be in Manhattan on Oct. 1 to watch herself onscreen: at the U.S. premiere of writer and director Dheeraj Akolkar’s Liv and Ingmar at the 50th anniversary of the New York Film Festival . Told entirely from Ullmann’s point of view and shot at the house Bergman built for the Norwegian actress on the spot in Fårø, Sweden where he declared his love for her, Liv and Ingmar is billed as a “affectionate but truthful” account of the filmmaking couple’s 42-year relationship that spanned 12 movies and a five-year affair. The Swedish filmmaker was 47 when he met and fell for the 25-year-old Ullmann on the set of his landmark Persona in 1965. The auteur and the actress, who were both married at the time, ended up living together for five years, during which Ullmann gave birth to their daughter, Linn Ullmann in 1966. Their friendship and their working relationship continued until Bergman’s death in 2007. “Liv Ullmann and Ingmar Bergman are two legends and like any other film fan I have been in awe of their work for a long time,” Akolkar said in a statement. “But what propels me to make this film is what lies beneath their greatness — this universal and very real story of a man and a woman…[who were] lovers-friends-companions.” The director added: “This film is for everyone who has loved and lost and continued loving.” Liv and Ingmar also utilizes clips and behind-the-scenes footage from the films they made, still photographs, passages from Ullmann’s book Changing and Bergman’s personal letters to his muse. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
As they used to say in my hometown, Kal Penn knocked Clint Eastwood’s dick in the dirt Tuesday night with a smart — and subtly smart-alecky — celebrity turn at the podium on the first night of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, NC. In contrast to 82-year-old Eastwood’s aimless — and heartless — speech in support of Mitt Romney , Penn, 35, gave a focused, funny speech that, like the Harold & Kumar franchise, proved to be a lot smarter than it’s stoner-targeted marketing campaign advertised. (Actually, I think there’s an argument to be made that stoners are some of the sharpest cultural consumers on earth, but that’s an argument for another day.) What I particularly appreciated about Penn’s speech was that it hit important DNC talking points without sounding like corny propaganda, and the actor struck an inclusive note that, I suspect, could sway some hawkish-yet-hip fringe voters to cast their ballot for President Obama. And that was in a single sentence: “I’ve worked on a lot of fun movies but my favorite job was having a boss who gave the order to take out Bin Laden and is cool with all of us getting gay married,” Penn told DNC delegates. “So thank you invisible man in the chair for that.” Duuuude! In a single soundbite, Penn, a former Associate Director for the White House’s Office of Public Engagement, accomplished a remarkable hat trick: He twitted Eastwood’s RNC performance; reiterated the administration’s support for gay marriage and reminded us that Osama Bin Laden was taken out under Obama’s leadership — a goal that, given America’s post-9/11 fury, should have been accomplished during the eight years of George W. Bush’s presidency. Penn’s reference to Bin Laden’s death was particularly smart because it sent the message that the Democratic Party does not engage in facile stereotyping. Penn is Indian-American, but if he hasn’t been singled out at an airport because his skin tone resembled the 9/11 terrorists’, I bet that he knows a lot of people who’ve had that experience. When Penn plainly stated his support for Obama’s silencing of Osama, I could hear a hundred Fox News-perpetuated stereotypes vaporizing with a satisfying sizzle. It’s not the first time that Penn has messed with the American public’s pat view of good and bad in a post-9/11 America, by the way. He blew me away in 2007 when he played Ahmed Amar on 24 . Penn’s performance repeatedly defied my expectations — especially when he turned out to be the terrorist that, I assumed, he couldn’t be thanks to my own internal stereotypes about political correctness. Penn’s decision to take that role at that particular time in American history was brave indeed, and that same year he told New York magazine that he’d almost turned down the part because “It was essentially accepting a form of racial profiling.” “I think it’s repulsive,” Penn explained. “But it was the first time I had a chance to blow stuff up and take a family hostage. As an actor, why shouldn’t I have that opportunity? Because I’m brown and I should be scared about the connection between media images and people’s thought processes?” Penn blew stuff up again tonight — in the best way possible. President Obama was smart to use him as a convention opener. Check out Penn’s speech below and please tell me whether you agree or not in the comments section below. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
