Also in Thursday’s round-up of news briefs, Disney Publishing is planning a book for Tim Burton fans who can’t get enough of Frankenweenie . Also this afternoon, a couple of new films that will be heading their way to theaters. World Premiere of Hitchcock to Open AFI Fest The film starring Oscar winners Anthony Hopkins and Helen Mirren as well as Scarlett Johansson, Jessica Biel and Vera Miles will have its World Premiere November 1st as the Opening Night Gala at AFI Fest 2012. Directed by Sacha Gervasi and based on the book Alfred Hitchcock and the Making of Psycho by Stephen Rebello, the film is a love story about one of the most influential filmmakers of the last century, Alfred Hitchcock, and his wife and partner, Alma Reville, which takes place during the making of the distinguished director’s seminal 1960 movie, Psycho . The Fox Searchlight feature will open in theaters this November. The 2012 AFI Fest takes place in Los Angeles November 1 – 8. Lincoln by Steven Spielberg was previously announced as the event’s Closing Night gala. J.K. Rowling Says Similarities Exist Between The Casual Vacancy and Harry Potter The author said there are common themes between her new adult-oriented novel and her blockbuster Harry Potter series including religion and death, though unlike in the boy wizard novels, she said there are deaths in her new book that readers “won’t care much about,” THR reports . Disney Publishing Frankenweenie: An Electrifying Book Based on Walt Disney’s stop-motion animated film by Tim Burton, the interactive book uses video, music and original sketches to offer a behind-the-scenes look into the making of the movie that will be released October 5th. Available on the iBookstore, this book is Disney Publishing’s first to be created with Apple’s iBooks author. Additional information can be found on the Disney Publishing website . Amphibious: Creature of the Deep is Heading to N. American Theaters The tongue-in-cheek creature feature by Brian Yuzna was picked up by Freestyle Digital Media. The pic tells the tale of a marine biologist, Skylar Shane, who hires an expat charter boat captain, Jack Bowman, to help her find prehistoric life form samples in the north Sumatran Sea. After she takes in an orphaned boy, strange occurrences happen on board the ship, including the death of some local smugglers by an unknown entity. Jen Cohen’s Museum Hours Heads to U.S. Theaters The Cinema Guild has picked up rights to Museum Hours , which debuted at the Locarno Film Festival and had its North American premiere in Toronto. The film centers on a Vienna museum guard befriends an enigmatic visitor, the grand Kunsthistorisches Art Museum becomes a mysterious crossroads which sparks explorations of their lives, the city, and the ways artworks reflect and shape the world.
As I skim the warmed-over tributes to Marilyn Monroe on the dubious occasion of her being dead for 50 years, a variation of one headline keeps coming up: “50 Years Dead and More Alive Than Ever.” Rather than post some smart-ass comment about lazy headline writers, I thought I’d work with that idea: If Marilyn was still alive, what would have been some great movie vehicles for her? Below, in no particular order, my Movieline Nine wish list, which mostly ignores what Monroe’s actual would have been when these movies would have been made. This is hypothetical after all, and, besides, if you, type “Marilyn Monroe” and “ageless” into Google, you get more than 3.8 million hits. Okay, Marilyn fans, you’ve been served. Now, in the words of J.J. Hunsecker: “Match me.” Put your wish lists in the comments section below. 1. Who Framed Roger Rabbit? (1988): Because Monroe playing the voice of Jessica Rabbit and delivering the line, “I’m not bad, I’m just drawn that way,” in her presumably wizened sex-kitten voice voice would have been a beautiful thing. 2. Th e Poseidon Adventure (1972): Actually, no time-space continuum meddling would have been necessary for Monroe to have starred in this movie. Shelley Winters was 52 when she played the part of Belle Rosen and made that unforgettable — and ultimately sacrificial — swim to save Gene Hackman and secure that underwater lifeline. Monroe would have been 46, and I’d like to think she would have been as bawdy and mouthy as Winters at that age. The swimming scene could also have been a great nod to her hot-stuff swimming-pool scenes in Something’s Got to Give , which, in keeping with the premise here, would have actually been finished. 3. Grey Gardens (2009): Given all of the media generated by alleged Monroe’s relationships with John F. Kennedy and his brother Bobby, think of the press frenzy that would have resulted had she portrayed Jacqueline Onassis’ loopy aunt, Edith “Big Edie” Bouvier Beale in Michael Sucsy’s dramatic adaptation of the Maysles Brothers 1975 documentary. 4. Young Adult (2011): This would require putting Diablo Cody and Jason Reitman in the Hot Tub Time Machine and sending them back to 1962, but, lo, the results! Monroe takes Charlize Theron’s homewrecking role, and a young Don Rickles takes over for Patton Oswalt. That’s a movie I want to see. Plus, the subject matter makes the movie much more talked-about in 1960s, thereby getting it more of the Oscar love it surely deserved. 5. Thelma & Louise (1991): Once again, some time-bending would be required since Monroe would have been in her mid-60s when this movie was made. The more important question, though is, would Marilyn have made a better Thelma or Louise? I say Louise, because I bet that by the time she hit middle age, Monroe would have thrilled to play a scene where she shoots a man. 6. Flirting with Disaster (1996): Monroe would have been pushing 70–about 10 years older than Mary Tyler Moore was when the sitcom star turned heads as the acidic, body-conscious Mrs. Coplin. But if Monroe had cared for her her curves, David O. Russell would have pulled a hallmark performance from her. I suspect Monroe would not have been nearly as tart as Moore, but she would have been memorable. 7. Ocean’s 11 (2001): You’re thinking Angie Dickinson’s role, I’m not. I love Elliott Gould, particularly in this movie, but I think Steven Soderbergh directing Monroe as the female Reuben Tishkoff would have been so cool. Clooney and Pitt could have played off her as if they’d had a sexual past in younger days, and Monroe could have had a Mae West Sextette moment. 8. New York, New York (1977): I was planning to include a Hitchcock film on here until I read some of Tippi Hedren’s interviews about her sexual harassment at the hands of the brilliant-but-brutish director. Then it hit me: Marty! Yes, I know the movie has its flaws, but it’s ambitious, and Scorsese would have pushed Monroe to new heights in both the dramatic scenes and the musical numbers. Then again, Marilyn was no Liza Minnelli. So, if you’re really struggling with it, throw reality to the wind and imagine Monroe in Sharon Stone’s role in Casino. 9. Step Sisters (In my dreams) So, in some alternate reality, some super agent convinces Adam McKay to direct a remake of his 2008 comedy Step Brothers starring Madonna and Lady Gaga in, respectively, in the Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly roles. Monroe would play Mary Steenburgen’s part. Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo would write. Yes, I know, it would be easier to raise Monroe from the dead than get Madonna to co-star in anything with Gaga, but just think of the box office. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter.
HBO’s upcoming original movie The Girl , previewed last week for the Television Critics Association, tells the story of Alfred Hitchcock (Toby Jones) and Tippi Hedren ( Sienna Miller ) making the films The Birds and Marnie . If you thought this would be a fun story about stepping in bird doodie and making it big in Hollywood , you’re in for a big shock, as Hedren spoke at length about the alleged sexual harassment and abuse she suffered at the hands of the “unusual, genius, and evil” director. As seen in the trailer for the film, The Girl alleges that not only was Hitchcock a difficult director for whom to work, he was an abusive personality. One scene from The Girl depicts Hitchcock sexually assaulting Hedren in the back of a car. Hedren has given many interviews on her Hitchcock films over the past 50 years; The Girl will expose Hedren’s little-known story to HBO audiences this fall. “People have said, ‘Was he in love with you?’” Hedren said. “No, he wasn’t. When you love someone, you treat them well. I think we’re dealing with a mind here that is incomprehensible, and I certainly am not capable of discerning what was going through his mind or why. I certainly gave no indication that I would ever be interested in any kind of a relationship with him.” Jones, who wore a prosthetic chin and age makeup to look more like Hitchcock, agreed that the Hitchcock he portrayed was a monster. “Yes, he had a huge disproportionate amount of power over the people who worked for him and with him,” Jones said. “Yes, he was a monster but he was very human in his foibles. There’s a certain pathos to him that is very human. His weaknesses were very human.” He perhaps offered more of an objective analysis of Hitchcock than Hedren was willing to speculate. “You’re not writing a biography of Hitchcock’s whole personality, but I think that it’s my job as an actor to sympathize with the character and to try and find that,” Jones continued. “I think he’s in control of everything at that point in his life – moviemaking, every aspect of moviemaking. He’s at the height of his fame after Psycho and then there’s something he can’t control, which is this woman who’s exercising some control over him. I’m not sure that he has the internal resources to cope with that and I think that’s something everyone can relate to, the idea of an emotion that begins to have control over you. Because control over such an important issue, you only need to look at his clothes, his uniform, the way he ordered his life, the way it became very systematic the way he operated, to know that control is crucial to him.” The film seems to play like an abusive marriage. It begins with Hitchcock discovering Hedren, depicted as almost a seduction of an innocent. Once filming begins he puts threatening pressure on her. For a scene in which birds attack Hedren, Hitchcock could have shot minimal takes. As The Girl shows, the scene went on for days, the underlying assumption being that he could make it stop if Hedren would acquiesce to his advances. Of course, these are all the negative elements of Hitchcock and Hedren’s relationship concentrated into a single film, and in this case a two minute trailer at that. “There were times when it was absolutely delightful and wonderful, the times that we spent while he was my drama coach,” Hedren explained. “I hadn’t had any acting experience except in commercials. You get a good technical background for that sort of thing. But to break down a script, to delve into how you become another character, the relationship of different characters in the film was something that I didn’t know how to do, and of course, it was perfect to have someone as brilliant a genius as Alfred Hitchcock being my drama coach.” “Hitchcock had a charm about him,” she continued. “He was very funny at times. He was incredibly brilliant in his field of suspense. I learned so much from that man about motion pictures; how you make a motion picture, so there are things that weren’t able to be in the film to say, ‘Why would she stick around for all of this?’ It wasn’t a constant barrage of harassment to me. So that is the fault of any film. It can’t possibly have everything in it. But if it had been constantly the way we have had to do it in this film, I would have been long gone.” Miller joined the TCA presentation by phone from London, and shared her experience recreating Hedren’s harrowing scenes in The Birds . “It was difficult during certain scenes, but not merely as difficult as it was for Tippi,” Miller said. “The bird attack scenes took five long days for her and it was about five hours for me. So while I definitely suffered a little bit, it was nowhere near the real thing.” By the time they went on to make Marnie , Hedren was fulfilling a contract and trying to survive. Marnie was never one of Hitchcock’s most popular or acclaimed films, but having shed light on his obsession with the star, The Girl reveals a lot more. Hedren is cast as the title character, a compulsive thief whose new husband forced her to marry him and tries to cure her. “After having seen this film, it’s pretty fascinating to look at that because it’s pathologically interesting,” Jones said. “I find it to be one of the most interesting among the movies but I don’t think it’s one of the great movies.” Perhaps the film is Hitchcock’s fantasy for how he would possess Hedren herself. Looking back, Hedren sees something pathetic in his abuse. “I think he was an extremely sad character,” Hedren said. “As I said in the beginning, we are dealing with a brain here that is unusual, genius, and evil, deviant almost to the point of dangerous because of the effect that he can have on people that are totally unsuspecting.” Hedren’s might not be the only story of Hitchcock’s abuse. She knew of other leading ladies who didn’t get along with him, but back in the ‘50s and ‘60s, actors didn’t talk publicly about their issues with directors. “As far as I know, Vera Miles had a terrible time with Hitchcock, and she wanted to get out of the contract,” Hedren said. “He didn’t let her. She did Psycho , and I believe, if you look at Psycho , there isn’t one close up of Vera, not one. After that, she would never even speak about him to anyone. So I think it is common knowledge that Hitchcock had fantasies or whatever you want to call them about his leading ladies. Peggy Robertson, his assistant for so many years, and I remained friends until she died. She at one point said to me that he would have these kind of feelings for his leading ladies, and she said, ‘But he never got over you.’ I don’t know if that’s a compliment or whatever it’s supposed to be, I don’t know, but I really don’t care either.” Today it seems shocking that any director could get away with sexual harassment, and have an untarnished reputation for some 50 years after the incident. The studio system of that era was much more secretive. “I had not talked about this issue with Alfred Hitchcock to anyone because all those years ago, it was still the studio kind of situation,” Hedren said. “Studios were the power and I was at the end of that, and there was absolutely nothing I could do legally whatsoever. There were no laws about this kind of a situation. If this had happened today, I would be a very rich woman.” Even though there are sexual harassment laws and a wide open public forum for any actor to share her stories in the media, Hedren hopes sharing her story now will protect the next generation of young actors. “I hope that young women who do see this film know that they do not have to acquiesce to anything that they do not feel is morally right or that they are dissatisfied with or simply wanting to get out of that situation,” Hedren said. “You can have a strength, and you deserve it. I can look at myself in the mirror, and I can be proud. I feel strong. He ruined my career, but he didn’t ruin my life.” The Girl airs in October on HBO. Follow Fred Topel on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
We hope you’re sitting down for this breaking celebrity news , THG readers: Miley Cyrus has a new tattoo on her arm. Of a Theodore Roosevelt quote, obviously. While heading out of a West Hollywood Pilates class on Tuesday, Cyrus sported her new ink, quoting “Citizenship in a Republic” by the former U.S. president. The excerpt from the 1910 speech on Miles’ forearm reads: “So that his place shall never be with those cold, timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.” No word if the Miley Cyrus tattoo man plans on adding similar ink in honor his young idol, but Miley isn’t alone in finding inspiration in Teddy’s words. That particular speech of Roosevelt’s moved both Richard Nixon and Nelson Mandela, who quoted from it during pivotal moments in their own careers. Nixon referenced it during his resignation, while Mandela used it to inspire South Africa’s rugby team to beat New Zealand at the historic ’95 World Cup. Miley, meanwhile, will presumably use it at some point to send a stirring Tweet to her fans. She has not done so yet, amazingly … give it 45 minutes. What do you think of Miley Cyrus’ new tattoo? [Photo: WENN.com]
It’s been known for awhile, but now it’s confirmed: Jill Zarin will not appear again on The Real Housewives of New York City . Zarin herself commented on her exit last September, while rumors then surfaced that Ramona Singer was responsible for the ousting. But Bravo has finally released a statement of its own on the matter, stating for the record: “We wish Jill the best, but there is no consideration of her returning to the series. The network, of course, overhauled this franchise’s cast with Heather Thomson, Carole Radziwill and Aviva Drescher heading into its fifth season. Ratings have been down a bit, however, leading to chatter that Zarin could return. Jill prompted that talk, too, when she told The New York Daily News recently: “I’ve reached out and offered [Bravo] any support they need” in order to boost viewership. That will not come to fruition, though, it’s now clear, while no new reality show featuring Zarin is in the works, either. [Photo: WENN.com]
It’s been known for awhile, but now it’s confirmed: Jill Zarin will not appear again on The Real Housewives of New York City . Zarin herself commented on her exit last September, while rumors then surfaced that Ramona Singer was responsible for the ousting. But Bravo has finally released a statement of its own on the matter, stating for the record: “We wish Jill the best, but there is no consideration of her returning to the series. The network, of course, overhauled this franchise’s cast with Heather Thomson, Carole Radziwill and Aviva Drescher heading into its fifth season. Ratings have been down a bit, however, leading to chatter that Zarin could return. Jill prompted that talk, too, when she told The New York Daily News recently: “I’ve reached out and offered [Bravo] any support they need” in order to boost viewership. That will not come to fruition, though, it’s now clear, while no new reality show featuring Zarin is in the works, either. [Photo: WENN.com]
Miley Cyrus loves being a fiancee . But she isn’t ready to be a bride just yet, despite a mysterious Tweet posted over the weekend. “Super lazy Sunday!” the star wrote yesterday, adding: “Can’t wait for next week! It’ll be filled with happiness.” Naturally, such enthusiasm led many to believe that Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth were planning to tie the knot in just a few days, but the actor’s rep has come out and shot down that notion. Liam is filming a movie in New York and will only be “back in LA for a night next week to receive an award from Australians in Film on the 27th,” the Hemsworth insider told Gossip Cop. Still, she may not be walking down any aisles too soon, but Miley sounds on top of the world these days. She also Tweeted yesterday: “Life is to short, stop compromising your happiness. Happiness is a right, a privilege that you deserve.” We’re pretty sure rights and privileges are completely opposing concepts, but let’s not nit-pick. Keep smiling, Miles!
Miley Cyrus loves being a fiancee . But she isn’t ready to be a bride just yet, despite a mysterious Tweet posted over the weekend. “Super lazy Sunday!” the star wrote yesterday, adding: “Can’t wait for next week! It’ll be filled with happiness.” Naturally, such enthusiasm led many to believe that Cyrus and Liam Hemsworth were planning to tie the knot in just a few days, but the actor’s rep has come out and shot down that notion. Liam is filming a movie in New York and will only be “back in LA for a night next week to receive an award from Australians in Film on the 27th,” the Hemsworth insider told Gossip Cop. Still, she may not be walking down any aisles too soon, but Miley sounds on top of the world these days. She also Tweeted yesterday: “Life is to short, stop compromising your happiness. Happiness is a right, a privilege that you deserve.” We’re pretty sure rights and privileges are completely opposing concepts, but let’s not nit-pick. Keep smiling, Miles!
Definitely not nude in theaters, Kelly MacDonald lends her voice to the new Pixar flick Brave . But to see Kelly go Brave-ly full frontal, check her out in 1996’s Trainspotting . Kind of nude on Blu-ray, Jennifer Aniston keeps covered in Wanderlust , but comedienne Kerri Kenney and some nude extras mean it’s not a total Wander-bust. And unbelievably nude on blu-ray, Sarah Miles gets boffed by Kris Kristofferson in the ’70s real-sex shocker The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea.
Sarah Jessica Parker…..the horse woman….is up there with the worst fucking people to ever be on TV….but more importantly the worst fucking people who were celebrated as being attractive, sexual, 30 something documenting her friend’s sex life, all stylish and showing off her big tits for her small frame, distracting from the fact that she was disgusting, cuz other women built her up…and dudes were forced to go along with it, cuz vagina controls us…. So seeing her lookin’ like a zombie you’d need to be on bath salts to wanto to get down with….rocking a see through shirt with no bra…is fucking disgusting…in an amazing kind of way….amazing like Ripley’s Believe it or Not…not amazing like my dick’s so hard I should take a pic of it to use for sexting at a later date cuz it’s peaking….if you know what I mean….worst see through ever….
