We’ve been basking in glorious movie nudity recently with Helen Hunt making her full frontal debut in The Sessions (2012) and Nadine Velazquez doing the same in Flight (2012). Unfortunately the good times are taking a break this week because there is a dearth of skin in theaters. First up, the big budget teen vampire series The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012) comes to its epic conclusion. There’s no nudity here, but the knowledge that Kristen Stewart goes topless in On The Road (2012) may get your stake pounding. Next slinky stunner Keira Knightley stars as the titular Anna Karenina (2012), but doesn’t show off any of her period pieces. Then Jennifer Lawrence is non-nude in Silver Linings Playbook (2012), but the silver lining is a topless shower scene from nudecomer Brea Bee 14 minutes in. More after the jump!
We’ve been basking in glorious movie nudity recently with Helen Hunt making her full frontal debut in The Sessions (2012) and Nadine Velazquez doing the same in Flight (2012). Unfortunately the good times are taking a break this week because there is a dearth of skin in theaters. First up, the big budget teen vampire series The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012) comes to its epic conclusion. There’s no nudity here, but the knowledge that Kristen Stewart goes topless in On The Road (2012) may get your stake pounding. Next slinky stunner Keira Knightley stars as the titular Anna Karenina (2012), but doesn’t show off any of her period pieces. Then Jennifer Lawrence is non-nude in Silver Linings Playbook (2012), but the silver lining is a topless shower scene from nudecomer Brea Bee 14 minutes in. More after the jump!
Keira Knightley is taking her seat on the fake nude bandwagon by posing “topless” for Allure UK . But unlike recent GQ covergirl Rihann a , she fails to actually slip any nip. The delicious bitsy-boobied babe appears nearly nude on the December cove r wearing only an open jacket, and also poses topless in the companion article. Unfortunately both shots keep the breast bits covered with a pesky hand bra. The accompanying quote is not so shy : “Sex scenes in films—I’m quite rigorous about what gets exposed…. No bottom half! I don’t mind exposing my tits because they’re so small—people really aren’t that interested!” Oh Keira, you are so very wrong about that! But don’t worry, skin fans, here’s what Kiera was keeping so modestly covered in print. See pics after the jump!
Keira Knightley is taking her seat on the fake nude bandwagon by posing “topless” for Allure UK . But unlike recent GQ covergirl Rihann a , she fails to actually slip any nip. The delicious bitsy-boobied babe appears nearly nude on the December cove r wearing only an open jacket, and also poses topless in the companion article. Unfortunately both shots keep the breast bits covered with a pesky hand bra. The accompanying quote is not so shy : “Sex scenes in films—I’m quite rigorous about what gets exposed…. No bottom half! I don’t mind exposing my tits because they’re so small—people really aren’t that interested!” Oh Keira, you are so very wrong about that! But don’t worry, skin fans, here’s what Kiera was keeping so modestly covered in print. See pics after the jump!
Wednesday morning’s round of five stories you should know also include a new thriller role for Maria Bello. Skyfall momentum continues in the U.S. box office, passing a threshold. And on the heels of Hollywood recognition, a director’s foreign-language pic is heading to the U.S. 1. Channing Tatum Named Sexiest Man Alive for 2012 How could Tatum not win the 2012 Sexiest Crown after starring in and being the creative force behind box office stripper success Magic Mike ? People magazine gave Tatum the 2012 title. “My first thought was, ‘Y’all are messing with me”I told [my wife] Jenna after we’d been in the bathtub washing our dogs because they’d gotten skunked.” People reports . 2. Jack Nicholson Tapped for Robert Downey Jr.’s The Judge Warner Bros is hoping to court the very picky actor to play Downey’s father. The project will star Downey as a successful attorney who returns to his hometown for his mother’s funeral only to discover that his estranged and Alzheimer’s-stricken father, the town’s judge, is the murder suspect. The man sets out to discover the truth and along the way reconnects with the family he walked away from years before. Nicholson is not a shoe-in. He has made only three movies since 2003, THR reports . 3. Maria Bello Set for James Wan Thriller The story revolves around the aftermath of a horrific massacre: five college students, brutally murdered inside a decrepit, abandoned home. Fresh on the scene, detective Mark Lewis and the police department’s psychologist, Dr. Elizabeth Klein (Bello), question one of the few survivors who explains they were amateur ghost-hunters, seeking out paranormal phenomenon at the abandoned house, believed to be haunted. Will Canon ( Brotherhood ) will direct the pic from producer James Wan’s concept. Wan co-created the successful Saw and Insidious franchises. 4. Skyfall Crosses $100M in the U.S. The latest James Bond has been a box office hit overseas and it’s seen its fortunes continue Stateside. It took in $11.3 million on Veterans Day combined with $90 million over the Friday – Sunday weekend, giving it a $101.9 million total. The global come as of Sunday was $518.6 million, Deadline reports . 5. The Deep Heads to U.S. Theaters U.S. rights to Baltasar Kormakur’s The Deep will head to Focus Features. His film Reykjavik-Rotterdam is being re-made into Contraband starring Mark Wahlberg and he is currently directing 2 Guns starring Wahlberg and Denzel Washington. The Deep is Iceland’s foreign-language Oscar submission, Deadline reports .
At a time when General David Petraeus’ affair with his biographer has become a media obsession, Leo Tolstoy’s 19th-century tale of love, adultery and aristocratic downfall, Anna Karenina , is more relevant than ever. And yet, with more than two-dozen film and TV adaptations of the novel in existence, director Joe Wright faced a daunting challenge: bringing a fresh perspective to the classic story. The gamble is whether its unique twist will translate into Oscar nominations. The sumptuous but unorthodox path he took — depicting pivotal scenes as if they were taking part on a theater stage — was akin to “jumping off a cliff” says Keira Knightley , who plays the movie’s title character, an alluring Russian aristocrat who breaks entrenched societal taboos and embarks on a torrid love affair with the affluent soldier, Count Vronsky. “I don’t know that we did know it would work,” said Knightley. “With Anna Karenina , it’s been done so many times before and there was a sense that if you’re going to tell this story again, you might as well do something that’s out there.” “Out there” includes depicting scenes of the titled heroine (or anti-heroine) on a stage as her marriage and social status disintegrates and she becomes the subject of societal scorn. “The worst thing we could do is fail,” said Knightley. “It was a constant conversation between us to make that balance work. But everyone was so deeply into it.” Wright, who directed the film from a screenplay adaptation by Tom Stoppard, decided just weeks before the shoot to re-work the film with the stage component. Knightely said the change threw the cast, which includes Jude Law and Aaron Taylor-Johnson, into a bit of a frenzy. But she added that the group was determined to give it their all — even if there was a chance it wouldn’t work. “[Joe Wright] demands 110%. He demands complete obsession and that’s exactly what he gives back. It makes him an extraordinarily magical person to work with and frightening to work with because it’s not a job in which you go home from. It’s everything from the time that you’re making it, and I think that’s one of the reasons people said ‘let’s do it’ with this concept.” She added: “He’s one of those people you go with and say, ‘let’s jump.'” Getting to know Anna Karenina — the character and novel — was also an evolution for Knightley who had a completely different take on the book after re-reading it before production began. The first time she read it as a “sweeping romance,” but the second time she wondered if Tolstoy despised Anna. “I remember thinking [most recently] — and people will disagree with me on this — that Tolstoy hates her and I’m not sure that she’s the heroine. I think she’s the anti-heroine,” said Knightley. “She is the whole of Babylon — she’s the person to be judged. But then [Tolstoy] does at times understand her and is completely in love with her. And that’s the dichotomy of Anna and what has made her an object of fascination for so many years,” Knightley explained. “You’re not really sure what to feel about Anna. She is deceitful, manipulative and needy. But she is also wonderful, lovable, and full of energy and love. She’s all those things.” Knightley also observed that Anna is a character that makes one take a look at their moral universe, and the actress said she took great pains to keep her from coming off as a gilded cliché. “She is a creature that makes you look at yourself because you are judging this person, but then you think, ‘Do I have a right to do that?'” said Knightley. “The people we hurt the most are the people we love the most. And that’s what she does. The difficulty in playing her is you don’t want to simplify that. The easy thing to do would be to make her the victim and Karenina the bad guy and I didn’t want to do just that.” When the film comes out this Friday, there will likely be another dichotomy: Audiences and critics who love the unconventional stage settings interspersed with more-or-less more traditional linear storytelling and those who’ll object. But Knightley is pleased with what will hit the screen. “I think it’s absolutely extraordinary. I haven’t seen anything like it. I think it’s always going to be something that some people won’t like, but I’m very proud of it. If you’re talking about cinema as an event – it is certainly an event. You only see naturalism in film at the moment. Whether you think it’s over-stylized or not, you have to celebrate the fact that it’s so completely different. And I really love it. And I love how daring Joe has been and I’m very glad I jumped off the cliff with him.” Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Keira Knightley is best known for starring in period pieces. Case in point? The upcoming Anna Karenina . But this beautiful actress is not exactly prim and proper. She’s been known to flash her breasts in movies and she poses in the latest issue of Allure … without a shirt on! Knightley does have one rule about nudity on camera, however: No bottom half , she tells the magazine. “I don’t mind exposing my tits because they’re so small,” she says. “People really aren’t that interested!” The first part is at least true, as Keira also went topless for a Chanel Ad a couple years ago. How do these poses and campaigns square with her beliefs? Knightley, who is engaged to James Righton , is aware there’s some hypocrisy at work when she removes layers of clothing for roles or magazine spreads. “I am a feminist,” she says. “But I clearly objectify myself – so that right there is a total contradiction to feminist principles.” And on behalf of men everywhere, allow is to say: Thank you! Sexiest contradiction ever!
Also in Friday afternoon’s round-up of news briefs, The Hunger Games gets a new Tribute. And remembering Oscar-winning Special Effects Artist Carlo Rambaldi and writer/actor David Rakoff. Keira Knightley Takes Lead in Jack Ryan Reboot Knightley will play the female lead in Kenneth Branagh’s Untitled Jack Ryan project. The actress is currently in talks to star as Jack Ryan’s wife, a role previously portrayed by Anne Archer, Gates McFadden, and Bridget Moynahan in previous installments of the franchise. Knightley joins Chris Pine, who’s long been attached to play the lead role, and Branagh, who in addition to directing will also star as the villain, THR reports . E. Roger Mitchell Boards The Hunger Games: Catching Fire Mitchell will play a Tribute from District 11 who previously won the 45th annual Hunger Games. The follow-up has past winners, including Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss participating in the “Quarter Qeull,” or the 75th anniversary Hunger Games, Deadline reports . Justin Theroux to Swear to God with Will Ferrell and Steve Carell Theroux will rewrite and direct Warner Bros. comedy Swear to God , starring Will Ferrell and Steve Carell. The story revolves around Ferrell who is a narcissistic hedge fund manager who believes he has seen God, Deadline reports . David Rakoff, Comic Essayist and Actor Dead at 47 His mother confirmed his death following a long battle with cancer. He described himself as a “New York writer” and a “Canadian writer” and a “mega Jewish writer.” He appeared in the Oscar-winning short The New Tenants (2009) which he also adapted. The New York Times reports with background from Wikipedia . E.T. Special Effects Artist Carlo Rambaldi Dead at 86 Rambaldi worked on more than 30 films and received two Oscars for E.T. (1982) and Alien (1979). He died in his southern Italian home following a long illness, The Washington Post reports .
A Tale of Two Titties? The Pud Also Rises? Snatch-22? Jane Bare? Madame Boner-y? Moby-Dick (You wouldn’t even need to change that one)? They’re coming to a bookstore [ Is that like a Kindle? -Kids these days] near you, and sooner than you might think. Publisher Clandestine Classics is hoping to combine the craze for literary mash-ups a la Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with the craze for dirty books a la 50 Shades of Grey with a new series, launching July 30, that makes explicit what the great works of English literature merely imply. Here’s how they sell it on their blog : “The old fashioned pleasantries and timidity have all been stripped away, quite literally. You didn’t really think that these much loved characters only held hands and pecked cheeks did you? Come with us, as we embark on a breathtaking experience—behind the closed bedroom doors of our favourite, most-beloved British characters.” Once again, porno is way ahead of the curve on this one. The adult industry has been churning out nude, rude versions of classic tales from Alice In Wonderland (1976) to the Marquis de Sade’s Justine (1969) to Bodacious Ta-Ta’s (1984) for decades now. What, you didn’t read Bodacious Ta-Ta’s in high school? See lusty literary icons come to life like Edwidge Fenech as Madame Bovary (1969) and Keira Knightley as the adulterous Lara in Doctor Zhivago right here at MrSkin.com!
Even Neil Young couldn’t resist. “This is a town in north Ontario,” he says at the beginning of Neil Young Journeys , Jonathan Demme’s uneven, engrossing combination of road-trip documentary and concert film. Journeys opens with Young in his hometown of Omemee, which alert Ontarians might note is not actually all that far north. It’s less than two hours from Toronto by car, which is how Young and Demme travel there, in a stately 1956 Ford Crown Victoria, for a gig at the city’s famed Massey Hall. He’s one of those legends Americans tend to assume emerged from one of their forbidding landscapes, or pockets in time. In the decades since he went from busking for change on Toronto’s streets to playing folk rock with Buffalo Springfield in the 1960s, Neil Young has become something of a Rosetta Stone across several worlds, including the Canadian-American axis. A number of genres and eras of music can be traced through his career, and many of his songs — most famously, perhaps, “Ohio” — document and respond to the times with vigor and alarm. He sang about Elvis and Johnny Rotten in “Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black),” the song Kurt Cobain quoted 15 years later in his suicide note. Around that time some friends and I made a two-hour drive of our own, to the enormous outdoor venue where Soundgarden and Pearl Jam were opening for Young. For us the latter third of the bill was a puzzle; why were our favorites ceding to this aging folky? Then Young shuffled out and rocked our worlds. Massey Hall is more intimate — under 3,000 seats — and at 65, as Demme emphasizes with his clamp-like focus on the performer, Young can still smash it up. Most of the film alternates between brief vignettes of a congenial Young at home and on the road and Young on stage, the impenetrable ax-man with that warbly, mournful, loon call of a voice. After ninety minutes of being so up-close and personal that for long stretches we’re looking directly up Young’s nose (a camera was attached to his mic stand, to dubious effect), the shell of his enigma shows barely a scratch. In Omemee he points out the school named after his father (writer Scott Young) and the home of the boy who persuaded him to eat tar (it’s like chocolate!). The family’s land in Pickering is derelict these days, but Young and his brother (who leads the caravan) remember how and where things used to be. The solo concert looks back as well, alternating between old glories and Young’s ever prolific present — his latest album, Americana , which reunites him with longtime collaborators Crazy Horse, was released earlier this month. The Journeys show, which took place last May, is a blend of songs from his 2010 album, Le Noise , and 1970s gems. At times the combination of the newer stuff and Demme’s static presentation sets the mind a-wanderin’; the mic-cam, for instance, seems like part of a struggle to hold our attention. Even less successful is the intrusion, during “Ohio,” of news footage and big red lettering announcing the events of that day at Kent State University and the names of the victims. It feels unnecessary to crowd that information into a song whose power is increasingly derived from the cumulative reminder, made across decades now, of what was lost; he’s never stopped singing that refrain. The audience is never seen and only faintly heard. This puts a lot of visual pressure on a very inward performer. Young is a beast onstage, to be sure — he seems to re-grow an appendix for each song, so that it can be removed, without anesthetic, before our eyes — but it’s a centrifugal charisma. The more intimate the song (in “Love and War” he confesses to betraying a partner and hitting “a bad chord,” presumably with Living with War , his controversial post-9/11 album; in “Hitchhiker” a laundry list of drugs taken and paranoias suffered is recited), the further away he seems — and the more we long for another minute with that other Young, the one who’ll admit to shoving firecrackers up a turtle’s back end when he was a boy. There’s no way to resolve a mystique like Young’s, as Demme seems to be discovering. Journeys is his third Young documentary in the last six years. Partly that has to do with the preservation of his talent: If all the new songs aren’t killers, all the old one weren’t either, and he remains a remarkably strong and dedicated musician. I think the other part has to do with the more abstract idea that while he’s often treated as an elder statesman — we’ve tried to make him one, “godfather of grunge” being one label — his legacy is more that of an elusive fellow traveler, one who has been telling our stories all along. Demme saved “Helpless” for the credits, where it played over images of small-town Ontario. I cried like a baby. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
