My Bieber Experience has been going on for about a two years now. It all started when I found out there was a contest to meet Justin. I worked really hard, sending in thousands of entries and sure enough, I won. I drove 11 hours from Texas to Atlanta, GA to meet Justin on December 23, 2010. To make a long story short, we had to go in groups and I ended up being shoved away from Justin. Scooter tried to help, but Justin was busy. I thought it was the end, but thankfully it wasn’t. I was very blessed to have a second chance. In other words, a do over, which not many people are lucky enough to get. I met Justin for the second time on October 30, 2012 in Houston, TX. I literally practiced how I was going to pose next to him for months. I was really nervous the whole week leading up to this day. I walked through the curtains and saw Justin standing there with both of his arms out ready for someone to get beside him. A man told me to get on Justin’s left, but I had practiced for his right, so I completely ignored him and was walking straight for Justin because someone was blocking me from his right side. Justin was standing there waving his arms in a really playful way, like ‘Which side are you gonna choose?’ I remember looking at him and thinking “Oh my God he’s flawless.” It all happened so fast that I couldn’t register what was going on. It was like one of those dreams where you can’t really see anything. When we took the picture Justin raised his arm like “HEY” but the picture was taken before his arm was all the way up, so it looks as if there is a invisible fan with us. It’s funny because now my picture is literally all over the internet and people are cropping me and drawing stick figures and stuff saying they are with Justin! When the picture was done I turned to Justin and said, “Justin” and he looked at me but I couldn’t look at him. I gave him a bracelet that I sell for charity and a man was motioning me to leave so I hurried out. On my way out I completely missed the curtain opening and almost ran into a bodyguard. I was in a daze. When I left, it was like my feet were glued to the ground. I couldn’t move and I’m pretty sure that the people after me left before I did. I started crying my eyes out and I was like, “What just happened oh my god.” My mom was like freaking out too. I looked up and saw Lil Twist and stopped crying . He was walking my way. My mom asked him if I could have a picture and he said yeah. A man came up to me to cut off my M&G wristband while I was trying to take a selfie. When he was cutting it off Lil Twist goes, “That’s dangerous!” Then I accidentally took a video of us, but he was so chill about it and waited for me to take a picture. After that I gave him a bracelet and he told me thank you. He walked away and I started crying, again. We went outside and were supposed to be let back in at 5:30 p.m., 30 minutes before everyone. But security never let us in which sucked because Pattie was right in front of the doors we were at. I was front row, and when I was sitting waiting for Carly to come on, I looked to my left and saw Justin’s grandpa Bruce! I ran over to him and was apparently the only one who noticed him. I asked for a picture and he told me that he couldn’t take a posed picture, but I was welcome to stand in front of him and take one, which I did and he smiled for it. I then gave him a bracelet and he read it out loud. “Make a change, that’s definitely what Justin does!” After that, Carly came on and looked and sounded amazing. When she finished performing her drummer gave me one of his drum sticks! After that was Justin, which was the best concert experience of my LIFE. During a song I was holding up a heart that said ‘Avalanna’ on it and he looked straight at me and smiled SO BIG! The show ended and I waited by the busses, as everyone else did. I saw DJ Tay James but before I realized it was him, he was gone. Justin never came out so we eventually left. I live 2 hours from Houston and on our way home we decided to get some food. We pulled into Wendy’s and saw a tour bus in the drive thru . I was in complete shock. Fredo was standing by the speaker thing and before I could calm down, he got back in the bus. That was basically the end of the best experience of my life. -@AmaniForSPCA/@amanisahyounie Read more: My Bieber Experience has been going on for about a two years…
Oscar winner Melissa Leo has always been one to keep busy, and in Robert Zemeckis ‘s Flight she fills her dance card with yet another brief but potent supporting turn. “‘ There are no small parts, only small actors ,'” she quoted to Movieline as we sat to discuss her Ellen Block, the key investigator and the lone figure standing between alcoholic pilot-hero Whip Whitaker ( Denzel Washington ) and a prison sentence in the addiction drama. “Sometimes there are small parts, actually,” she laughed, “but this was no small part.” Leo, one of the go-to character actresses working today, has made an art out of popping up to deliver crucial supporting roles when she’s not carrying her own indie movies. (She earned her first Oscar nod for her work in Frozen River and won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar for The Fighter , while Francine , an intimate study of a woman newly released from incarceration , is the rare film featuring Leo in the lead; it’s in select theaters now.) In Flight , she manages to do no one else in the film can, and what few have done in the movies, period: Intimidate Denzel Washington. Movieline caught up with Leo in Los Angeles, where we spoke in-depth about Flight , what President Obama has in common with Washington’s Whip Whitaker, how she came to play Robin Williams’ wife twice in one month in The Angriest Man in Brooklyn and Lee Daniels ‘ The Butler , and why mixed messaging is a clever way to get audiences to experience the terror in Flight more frightening than a plane crash: “There are all kinds of people in the world, but the way that addiction can grip a talented human being is so sad.” You are having such a busy year. When you stop to think about it, does it seem that way to you? I’ve been very, very busy. Most of it is unfortunately all the traveling between all of it, which is the hardest part of it – but I get through it, because why complain? I get to go to Romania and work with Shia LaBeouf [in The Necessary Death Of Charlie Countryman ], and then I get to go up to Canada and work with Sammy Rockwell [in A Single Shot ], and I got to do this with Denzel. It’s been a lot of running about doing work, but its been fun. The most fun part of it has been the experience and talent I’ve gotten to play with in the last six months. It’s funny that you should mention the constant traveling, because you’d think a movie like Flight might frighten you away from airplanes. [Laughs] I’m an actor, right? I know that when I’m up there in my little red jacket I’m not as smart as that lady is. I can pretend to be that smart, to play her – but I’m more aware of the pretend of what we do. That’s the angle that I come at it from. So the “accident” is thrilling moviemaking to watch; I’m fascinated by the filmmaking in it. And Brian Geraghty! His fear makes me feel so afraid. Just a terrified little boy in the cockpit. I think that is one of the scariest pieces of that amazing thing Zemeckis did, staying inside the airplane. But it’s play! When I arrived in Atlanta to shoot I was lucky enough to see them building the animation of the shot where the plane knocks the chapel off the church. I saw the inner workings of how he was going to do that. So you see, it’s not real to me. Why be afraid? If you’ve got Whip Whitaker out of his mind on booze and coke in that pilot’s seat, well, you got on the airplane and that’s your lot in life. I don’t wish a plane accident on myself, by any means, but if it happens, so shall it be. That’s such a terrifying scene, the audience collectively gasps because we’ve all been there on a plane, wondering what would happen if things went wrong. It’s such an odd sensation, to be at once terrified and entertained by a scene in a movie like that. We also go on ferris wheels and roller coasters, to get our hearts racing in the way that perhaps they raced when our husbands went out in loincloths to slay a bear. It’s a human necessity, to elevate your feeling in that way – and that’s why we go to the movies. The more terrifying force in Flight is Whip’s addiction… So well put. But I can’t imagine everyone out there will know that going in, based on the ads. I think it’s a genius plan to get everyone in the United States to sit down and watch that film, because they’re going to see Denzel Washington and this big plane accident and it’s going to be so exciting – and to get this intimate portrait, this sad, sad portrait of a talented, capable, functioning addict is much more scary. Your character plays a very interesting role in Whip’s story, in that she’s a looming antagonist – she’s the one who could bring his world crashing down, who he and his legal team worry will be their undoing. How was the character presented to you, and why did you decide to do it? I tell [screenwriter] John Gatin all the time that I’m so pleased they mention her name so often in the film, because when she comes you really know who she is. Some people have said, ‘You’re so mean to him,’ but I don’t think she’s mean at all. That sort of delineates people in their responses to it – if people understand what it is to need help, they do not see her as mean. I was so highly honored that someone with such experience, such scope of who he could use in the role, would come and not just ask would I do it but beg me to do this role for him. I understood, you know, the old expression ‘There are no small parts, only small actors’ – and sometimes there are small parts, actually –but this was no small part. [Laughs] The load that he was giving me far outweighed the moments in it. It’s also more dialogue than I generally have to learn for an entire script! It was a responsibility that Mr. Zemeckis placed on my shoulders, and that was not lost on me. The honor he was giving me, saying ‘You can bring this home for me.’ If the scene doesn’t work, the film doesn’t work. He was asking me to do that. And having now seen it and heard people’s response I feel I can say I did a pretty OK job. It’s also pretty fun watching you in the hearing scene, having Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, and Bruce Greenwood all intimidated by you. [Laughs] We accomplished most of that by simply staying very distant all day. There’s a big temptation on a set to get to know folks and chat with them, but it’s not really why any of us show up. I think some of us show up for the press because we might get an opportunity to do some of that friendly visiting! But in my mind very clearly Ellen Block has her own agenda, she has her own people she answers to, and as far as she’s concerned she knows exactly what this ne’er do well attorney is up to. She’s not involved with them in any way, so by shutting them out of my world maybe that’s what establishes that distance between them. She’s also quite surprising in that she’s built up in such a way, from Whip’s perspective, that you expect her to be some big scary lady coming after him, guns blazing. That’s Mr. Zemeckis. That was his choice. I asked him what he needed from it. It could have been done in a very mushy, maternal way. It could have been done in a very angry and judgmental kind of way. He didn’t want any of that; he just wanted her to extract the truth. It was a very clear direction. So much of Whip’s life is a performance – he’s acting, pretending to be something he isn’t, just to hide his addiction from people. He’s getting by in that way until the crash makes him a celebrity and the world puts him on a pedestal. I may be reaching, but can you relate to the balancing act of having to deal with that sort of attention as a celebrity while retaining your own private complexities as a human being? You’re not wrong in seeing how complicated it is. With little recognized accomplishment does anything negative get said about you, would anybody bother? No, they wouldn’t. But if you have an accomplishment or accolade given to you, you’re much more open to speculation of your more dark sides, and judgment about you. Eventually you learn to know that everybody has an opinion. It’s kind of interesting that anybody would have an opinion about you, you know? But it’s a funny thing. It makes me think of dear Obama. Back when he made that speech as a senator years ago and people were like, ‘What a speech!’ It’s almost even since that moment that people began to find things to tear him apart with. Until you walk in any shoes like that, it’s the same with Whip Whitaker – what are the reasons that he’s turned so fully? The portrait of a strong and capable man who’s such a dirty rotten addict… I’ve known such addicts, and it’s so much harder in a strong, smart, capable person than somebody who wasn’t ever really going to do anything with their life anyway. There are all kinds of people in the world, but the way that addiction can grip a talented human being is so sad. Shifting gears, I’d like to take you back in time a bit. You’ve done so many great and celebrated projects during your career, but one of my favorite credits of yours is All My Children . [Laughs] Before I worked on it, man, I used to watch them all the time! We all did. Back when I did it, soap opera just had one of its biggest heydays ever. And that was even from radio, when it was the only kind of entertainment. I loved that job, I really did. It was shot the way live television was shot, and I’ll never get an opportunity to do live television again like that. There’s a famous cat fight scene that made the rounds a few years back. Do you remember it as fondly as the internet does? When that came up on the internet and somebody pointed it out to me, I couldn’t even remember the fight. I looked it up, too, because so many people were asking, I felt like a silly goose that I couldn’t remember. Now fast forward to the future – you have about a dozen movies coming out in the next few years. Yes, and they’ll all be like this. Well, not all of them; you won’t have to wait ‘til the end of the movie to see me in all of them. But most of them are one or two –day parts, and the continuing story down in New Orleans playing Toni Bernette on Treme , and getting to play Robin Williams’ wife twice in the last month, what a hoot… How did that even happen? Just a fluke. A total, absolute fluke. I’ve met Lee Daniels over the last few years and I was just delighted when he asked me to come do his Mamie for him with Robin as his Ike. At the same time Phil Robinson wanted me to play Robin’s wife in The Angriest Man in Brooklyn . Did you and Robin find yourself bringing one movie marriage into the next? Oh, it was really delicious! With both roles, we had so much. If you’ve ever spoken with Robin or have spoken with anyone who’s spoken with Robin, he’s a very serious actor, and very concerned. He was constantly at Phil’s side after takes – not neurotically so, but just like, ‘Did I get it right, is that what you needed?’ But he also cannot help himself – if he hears something out of the corner of his ear and he has a joke, out will come a joke, and another, and another. Everybody’s on the floor laughing! So as we played Mamie and Ike, it was very serious to both of us – he had done an incredible amount of research on Eisenhower. And the way Lee wanted them portrayed is not really in the history books. It’s from Forest’s eyes that you’re seeing all these presidents and their wives come through the White House, so you really want a more intimate portrait of them than you’d get in a biopic. But then to be back up on Brooklyn shooting, I said to Robin at one point during this lovely dancing scene, ‘Remember that party where we dressed up as Ike and Mamie Eisenhower?’ And I got him to laugh! I was so delighted. Read more on Flight , in theaters today . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
I already posted these pics of Miranda Kerr in Esquire…because I am the unofficial most relevant site when it comes to models, celebrities and sluts, on the internet…according to me and my 2 readers, one of which is a virgin in India and the other is some pervert applying lipstick who wants me dead…. But in being the most relevant site for this kind of thing on the internet that no one cares about….I am forced to update you with more Miranda Kerr ass in sheer nighties…. Cuz that shit wasn’t in the first round…but I am pretty glad it happened….and here it is.
Ashley Greene covers the December issue of British GQ . And you may need to take an extra long coffee break to enjoy these photos, fellas. Click to enlarge now and consider yourself warned: Is there any doubt now why Greene has earned the 55th spot in our THG Hot Bodies Countdown ? Among topics covered in the GQ interview with the Twilight Saga beauty: The challenging of dating as a celebrity : “Dating is a hard, hard thing when you have this job. Sometimes I wish I could just go back to Florida and, like, date my home-town boyfriend. It’s really frustrating whenever I can’t go and do something because I know it’s going to be on the Internet.” On celebrity gossip rumors : “Like if I go to a friend’s house, they’ll be, ‘She’s dating him!’ It’s like, ‘Oh, am I dating my brother now? Is that what’s happening?’ Or when they write that I was with a ‘mystery man,’ and I’m like, ‘He’s gay, by the way, so it is a mystery!’” On attention-getting suitors : “When I’m dating a guy and he says, ‘I don’t want press,’ and then says, ‘Let’s go to Katana for dinner’ – I’m like, ‘Really? You don’t want to just walk down the street to some dive? You don’t want to get photographed but you want to go to a place where you know there’s paparazzi?”
Well, say goodbye to the Internet. It’s about to explode. The Walt Disney Company has purchased Lucasfilm Ltd. for $4 billion, according to reports, and included in the press release announcing that mega sale is this passage: Star Wars Episode 7 is targeted for release in 2015, with more feature films expected to continue the Star Wars saga and grow the franchise well into the future . Says direcctor George Lucas: “For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next. “It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers. I’ve always believed that Star Wars could live beyond me, and I thought it was important to set up the transition during my lifetime. I’m confident that with Lucasfilm under the leadership of Kathleen Kennedy, and having a new home within the Disney organization, Star Wars will certainly live on and flourish for many generations to come.” It’s really happening, movie fans. What do you think? Are you excited for Star Wars Episode VII? OMG, YES! No way, the last three sucked! Eh, a little View Poll »
Lane Lindell is some pageant girl who represented USA in the 2008 Miss World competition, where she was a semi-finalist….which to me means she was still a fucking loser…even if she won the evening gown portion of the night….. She’s also a sorority girl from Florida, was born in 1990 and has a wikipedia page that is giving me all this riveting information on her, when all that really matters is that she’s a catalog model for a lingerie company I have never heard of…making moves to get a head by getting half naked…probably not her number one dream strategy to reach the fucking top…but one of my number one ways to reach the top…along with sex tape…. I figure….some of you may like to jerk off to catalog pics as a tribute to when you were growing up before the internet and catalog pics were all you had to jerk off to…I am not that kind of guy.
Disney’s 2011 family adventure Mars Needs Moms wasn’t just a box office disappointment; it was a box office disaster , one of the worst in movie history . Mars producer Robert Zemeckis , appearing at the Philadelphia Film Fest with his latest Oscar-hopeful, Flight , prefers to remember Mars Needs Moms another way: “It’s the best 3-D movie since Avatar .” Zemeckis’s bold answer matched the bold question that prompted his trip down memory lane during Flight ‘s post-screening Q&A session on Saturday night. Following a string of massive career hits ranging from the Back to the Future franchise to Oscar juggernaut Forrest Gump , the Zemeckis-produced Mars Needs Moms opened last year as the filmmaker’s most high profile critical and commercial failure. ImageMovers Digital, the Zemeckis-founded CG house that produced Mars as well as his own films The Polar Express , Beowulf , and A Christmas Carol , was shut down after completing Mars , while plans to embark on a Yellow Submarine pic with Disney were also scrapped; needless to say, it’s probably not Zemeckis’s favorite topic of conversation. (For what it’s worth, Flight , Zemeckis’s Denzel Washington -starring return to live-action film, played well with the Philly crowd.) But one Philadelphia Film Fest attendee was eager for answers. Film critic Martin Schneider penned a reasonably questioning if snarky review of Mars Needs Moms at the time of release, criticizing the film for a slew of offenses ranging from its animation to character development, with particular scrutiny of the film’s “anti-gay,” anti-progressive gender messaging. He seized the opportunity during the Philadelphia Film Fest closing night film event to share how offended he was by the film, asking Zemeckis to explain: What happened ? For his part, Zemeckis didn’t flinch. Prior to the film’s screening, Philadelphia Film Society Executive Director J. Andrew Greenblatt told the audience that the director would be taking questions, and that they could “ask him anything.” It’s tough to say whether or not Zemeckis expected the subject of his history-making bomb to pop up, but when faced by his accuser he kept his cool under pressure, like Denzel’s alcoholic hero Whip Whitaker. And then Zemeckis flew the airplane upside down, so to speak. “It was not marketed properly,” he said of the 3-D CG sci-fi flop, which cost a reported $150 million to make and made back just $38.9 million upon release, becoming the worst Disney performer of all time and one of the most miserable wide release 3-D openings in history. Zemeckis said Mars Needs Moms had been lost in the studio shuffle. He called it “breathtaking.” “It’s the best 3-D movie since Avatar ,” he continued. “It’s the way 3-D should be presented.” Meanwhile, in a career built on crowd-pleasers and after a decade spent attempting to bridge the uncanny valley with CG children’s films, Flight marks only the second film Zemeckis has directed to earn an R-rating. (His first? 1980s’s Used Cars .) Rated R “for drug and alcohol abuse, language, sexuality/nudity, and an intense action sequence,” Flight wasn’t gunning for anything less, given its full-tilt dive into the depths of addiction. “There was no way an adult drama was ever going to be anything other than R-rated,” said Zemeckis. Still, he earned applause with a parting shot at the MPAA: “I hate the ratings system. I think it’s horrible and despicable, and we should get rid of it.” Flight opens nationwide November 2. For more info on the Philadelphia Film Fest, head here . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Yes, Frankenstorm has a much more ominous and Halloween-friendly ring to it. But the gentler, more goody two-shoes-in-black-leather, more obvious side to Hurricane Sandy and its internet meme potential involves Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta . Do you have chills yet, East Coasters? Are they multiplying ?! And this gem, which wins the meme-off by a mile ( Todd Hale via Jezebel ): The Category 1 hurricane is set to rock the Eastern seaboard tonight into the early week ( tell me about it, stud ) and already has tens of millions of people longing for those bygone summer nights. GROAN! For those of you venturing out in the ‘cane for Halloween, here’s a free costume idea: Combine Olivia Newton-John’s bad-girl blonde curls, hot mama lipstick, and dangling cigarette with a skintight off-the-shoulder trash bag covered in cotton ball clouds and toy cars and hit those Halloween parties as Hurricane Sandy Olsen. Doubles as protective rainwear! In all seriousness, stay safe out there, hurricane pals. Put your disaster days off from work and school to good use, by which I mean making more Hurricane Sandy memes for my internet-browsing enjoyment. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Yes, Frankenstorm has a much more ominous and Halloween-friendly ring to it. But the gentler, more goody two-shoes-in-black-leather, more obvious side to Hurricane Sandy and its internet meme potential involves Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta . Do you have chills yet, East Coasters? Are they multiplying ?! And this gem, which wins the meme-off by a mile ( Todd Hale via Jezebel ): The Category 1 hurricane is set to rock the Eastern seaboard tonight into the early week ( tell me about it, stud ) and already has tens of millions of people longing for those bygone summer nights. GROAN! For those of you venturing out in the ‘cane for Halloween, here’s a free costume idea: Combine Olivia Newton-John’s bad-girl blonde curls, hot mama lipstick, and dangling cigarette with a skintight off-the-shoulder trash bag covered in cotton ball clouds and toy cars and hit those Halloween parties as Hurricane Sandy Olsen. Doubles as protective rainwear! In all seriousness, stay safe out there, hurricane pals. Put your disaster days off from work and school to good use, by which I mean making more Hurricane Sandy memes for my internet-browsing enjoyment. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Friends, let me tell you about a little movie called Miami Connection : One part ’80s rock ‘n’ roll musical, another part martial arts extravaganza, this forgotten gem made in 1987 by future Tae Kwon Do Grandmaster Y.K. Kim is the cult pic of the year. When else will you ever see a team of multicultural orphan BFF rock musicians-slash-college students take on biker ninjas and economically frustrated rival bands in totally ’80s suburban Florida, complete with insanely catchy original tunes AND a throwaway plot involving “stupid cocaine?” I’ll tell you when: Never. The goodly folks at Drafthouse Pictures unearthed Miami Connection by accident after blind-screening a print bought for $50 from the internet. Miami Connection isn’t just bad-great, it’s got a real heart at its core, and that heart beats to the rhythm of ditties like “Against the Ninja” (sample mid-song chant: “TAE KWON/TAE KWON — TAE KWON DO!”) and “Friends Forever” (sample lyric: “Friends for eternity, loyalty, honesty/We stick together through thick and thin”). Their band name? Dragon Sound. In the spirit of awards season and to celebrate next week’s theatrical re-release of Miami Connection — its original run consisted of a handful of theaters in Florida in 1987, accompanied by critical and commercial rejection — Drafthouse has created a series of For Your Consideration ads. Movieline is proud to exclusively present for your consideration, for Best Song (yes, maybe of all time), “Against the Ninja” co-written and sung by the film’s leading lady, Kathee Collier: Collier is unfortunately very tough to Google for a “Where Are They Now” update, but Kim and the rest of Dragon Sound made it to Austin, TX in September for Fantastic Fest . Suffice to say it’s possible Collier single-handedly kept the ’80s in hairspray, pumps, and white lace bodysuits. I only hope she’s out there somewhere humming along and relishing in her memories as anyone who’s seen Miami Connection will be for months. Miami Connection opens in select theaters starting on November 2. For a full list of cities & dates visit http://drafthousefilms.com/film/miami-connection. To request a screening in your city through Tugg, visit http://www.tugg.com/titles/miami-connection. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
