Remember Shame ? The NC-17 one featuring Michael Fassbender as a sex addict, Carey Mulligan as his off-kilter sister, a couple of notorious ” late-night lovers ” and a thriving awards-season profile that imploded a month ago like a dying star, seemingly having taken the film with it? Right, that one. Now, as per the rules of the cosmos and/or art-house schemes in Columbia, S.C., that star has finally exploded back into consciousness in perhaps the best way possible. The flier pictured above was spotted in and around Columbia over the holiday weekend, urging local moviegoers to avoid the “den of sin” known as the Nickelodeon Theater. The 75-seat venue had finally booked Shame for a run, and without the benefit of a sustained Oscar campaign for erstwhile front-runner Fassbender , the fliers seemed to play right into the hands of Nickelodeon management. Too good to be true? WLTX Channel 19 is on the scene ! (Sorry in advance about the commercial.) The Onion would be proud. Sort of. Anyway, nicely played, Andy Smith! [ WLTX via Pullquote ]
“What the box office success of the re-released Special Editions told Hollywood is that the only way to create another global phenomenon is to make a new STAR WARS movie. 1997 was the start of the modern-day fanboy/geek culture that now runs Hollywood. Fanboy culture (Comic-Con, Harry Potter, Twilight , The Hunger Games, The Lord of the Rings , J.J. Abrams, Joss Whedon, Marvel comics, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Glee , Aint-It-Cool-News, Attack of the Show ) is a groupthink mentality that claims to be democratic, what with its we-know-what’s-best-because-we’re-fans ethic, but is really pop culture fascism. And it’s the fans’ demand (remember, fan is short for fanatic), that led to Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace — the most hyped (and possibly most reviled) blockbuster in movie history.” [ Some Came Running ]
Belgium-born singer talks about the song’s growing success and stripping down for its very naked music video. By James Montgomery Gotye in his “Somebody That I Used to Know” music video Photo: Eleven You might not know who Gotye is, but you’ve definitely heard his song. It’s a tidy little ball of emotional wreckage called “Somebody That I Used to Know,” and it’s currently burning up both the Billboard Hot 100 and Modern Rock radio (and it’s becoming a go-to track for the CW’s stable of teensploitation programming). The thing you might not know is that the roots of the Belgium-born (Australia-raised) singer/songwriter’s signature hit actually stretch back more than a year … when he was struggling to finish his Making Mirrors album. Though now, as Gotye begins his U.S. press push, he’s more than happy to tell you the backstory. ” ‘Somebody That I Used to Know,’ like a lot of the record, was a bit of a struggle to finish,” he told MTV News. “It was written fairly quickly — I wrote it in November 2010 — but it took six months to find Kimbra [who features on the track] and really realize she was the right vocalist to make the female part come to life. There were constant hurdles.” Then again, that’s been a fairly common occurrence. Because the making of each of his studio albums has been a battle, though Gotye is quick to chalk that up to the way he chooses to work. And “Somebody” is a prime example of what happens when he pushes through his struggles. “Sometimes I’ll have sections that I’m not quite sure how they fit in the puzzle of a tune, they’ll get moved around; what I think was originally a verse ends up becoming the chorus, or what’s an intro gets dropped as a hook, things get shifted around a lot,” he explained. “That song was written in a very linear fashion; and then I hit this brick wall of not knowing where to go with this one person’s story, and that prompted me to add another perspective.” And then, as his legions of female (and male) fans around the world are surely aware of, there’s the matter of the “Somebody” video, which features Gotye and Kimbra sans clothing … but loaded down with body paint. And yes, making the clip certainly presented a rather unique set of challenges. “The shots I did by myself, I chopped up a pair of my underpants and had them sort of gaffer-taped strategically around certain areas. But at one stage it just became a bit absurd, because the gaffer tape would just keep coming off, and my friend James, who was actually filming behind the scenes on the video, he’s got some pretty incriminating footage,” Gotye laughed. “There was just a point where the cinematographer of the clip was a bit more vicariously embarrassed for me than I was, because the underpants would just fall open and I’d be like ‘Let’s just keep going, there’s nothing nobody hasn’t seen here before.’ “We shot it over two very full days … I quite clearly remember driving home at 9 a.m., after shooting all day, in a bathrobe, with bodypaint all over my face, and going through McDonald’s drive-thru,” he continued. “I ordered a coffee to make sure I didn’t crash on the way home. And the girl working there, she didn’t even bat an eyelid. I guess it’s a regular thing down in Hastings [Australia] McDonald’s.” What do you think of Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” video? Leave your comment below!
‘W.E.’ director tells MTV News she prefers directing because ‘If I’m the actor, I’m just … I’m a pawn.’ By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Madonna directing “W.E.” Photo: The Weinstein Co. Madonna has given the whole thespian thing a try several times over. So, the idea of hitting the big screen again in front of the camera doesn’t really appeal much to the “W.E.” writer and director. “No [I don’t want to act], but I do [act] every day of my life,” she told MTV News, before waxing a bit more philosophical about her future ambitions for a career on the big screen. “I like directing better,” she further explained. “If I write it and direct it, then it’s my voice. If I’m the actor, I’m just … I’m a pawn.” As Madonna embarks on yet another chapter in her always-evolving career, she explains that she hopes that people will be able to love her for every project she’s attached herself to in her decades-spanning career. “I’d rather not divide things up into categories, but I prefer the idea that people would say that I contributed to the culture, the zeitgeist from a female perspective as a musician, as a songwriter, as a filmmaker, in my political point of views of the issues that I’ve stood by and fought for,” she said. “I hope that I consider all of these things to be a part of my body of work and I’d rather not go, ‘Oh, she’ll be remembered as a great filmmaker, a great songwriter.’ ” “W.E.” opens Friday and follows two parallel love stories. It focuses on the vintage, tabloid romance between American divorc
‘W.E.’ director tells MTV News she prefers directing because ‘If I’m the actor, I’m just … I’m a pawn.’ By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Madonna directing “W.E.” Photo: The Weinstein Co. Madonna has given the whole thespian thing a try several times over. So, the idea of hitting the big screen again in front of the camera doesn’t really appeal much to the “W.E.” writer and director. “No [I don’t want to act], but I do [act] every day of my life,” she told MTV News, before waxing a bit more philosophical about her future ambitions for a career on the big screen. “I like directing better,” she further explained. “If I write it and direct it, then it’s my voice. If I’m the actor, I’m just … I’m a pawn.” As Madonna embarks on yet another chapter in her always-evolving career, she explains that she hopes that people will be able to love her for every project she’s attached herself to in her decades-spanning career. “I’d rather not divide things up into categories, but I prefer the idea that people would say that I contributed to the culture, the zeitgeist from a female perspective as a musician, as a songwriter, as a filmmaker, in my political point of views of the issues that I’ve stood by and fought for,” she said. “I hope that I consider all of these things to be a part of my body of work and I’d rather not go, ‘Oh, she’ll be remembered as a great filmmaker, a great songwriter.’ ” “W.E.” opens Friday and follows two parallel love stories. It focuses on the vintage, tabloid romance between American divorc
Director talks to MTV News about time travel, 3-D and skipping his homework to watch the melodramatic vampire soap. By John Mitchell Johnny Depp and Michelle Pfeiffer in “Dark Shadows” Photo: Warner Bros. Director Tim Burton has kept such a tight lid on his forthcoming big-screen adaptation of the late-’60s soap opera “Dark Shadows” that last week we were forced to imagine things we’d want to see in a trailer for the film because one hasn’t even dropped yet. News on the film has been scarce — until now! Last week, MTV’s resident movie guru Josh Horowitz talked to Burton about his busy 2012 , and the director was forced to dish on his biggest project of the year. Burton told MTV News he was busy “editing and doing effects” for the film now. Though the film will not be “an effects-heavy picture, it’s still got stuff in there,” he said. At the BAFTA Britannia Awards late last year, MTV News talked to Burton’s partner Helena Bonham Carter , who appears frequently in his films, including “Alice in Wonderland,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” and she told us that “Shadows” was a childhood obsession of Burton’s. “This was a thing that he raced home to see when he was about age 10,” she said. “So it was returning to his childhood roots of what he loved watching.” Burton echoed her comments, telling MTV, “People like Michelle [Pfeiffer] grew up watching it. Some of the cast knew about it, some didn’t, but they were all game for it — getting into the weird spirit of what ‘Dark Shadows’ was. There was a generation of us who would run home from school to watch it. That’s probably why we were such bad students. We should have been doing homework; we were watching ‘Dark Shadows’ instead.” “Shadows” bested “Spider-Man” to make the Elite Eight and is up against “The Dark Knight Rises” in round two of the MTV Movie Brawl 2012 — vote here! For the director, the most difficult thing in bringing “Shadows” to the big screen has been mastering the tone of the melodramatic soap. “It was hard to put into words the tone it was. It had a weird seriousness, but it was funny in a way that wasn’t really funny. We just had to feel our way through it to find the tone,” Burton said. “We didn’t do any real rehearsals, because the cast all came in at different times. But there was an old photo of the [original] cast which I always remembered, so a couple days before shooting, we got the whole cast together to take a similar shot so everyone could see each other and get that vibe from doing a group photo. That helped set the tone more than anything.” Burton didn’t reveal much about the vampire flick’s plot but did (somewhat) resolve a few lingering questions we’ve had about the film. Asked if the film’s story — like that of the show — would include time travel, the director admitted that, while audiences will get to see the Collins family in the late-1700s, most of the film is set “in 1972, which to the era of ‘Dark Shadows’ is the modern era.” Elaborating further on time travel, Burton added, “For me, that’s when the show kind of made me want to do homework. I was like, ‘Wait a minute!’ That came near the end of the trail of the series.” So it seems unlikely that the main story line resurrected for the early ’90s remake of the series, which had Victoria Winters traveling through time to Collinwood circa Barnabas’ (Johnny Depp) transformation into a vampire, will be incorporated here. Perhaps the trip back Burton refers to here is instead a flashback to show audiences how Angelique (Eva Green) used her evil magic to turn Barnabas into a creature of the night? Burton also confirmed that the film will not be released in 3-D, as his version of “Alice” was. “No. It’s the ’70s, man. Only ‘Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror’ was in 3-D,” the director tells MTV News. “That’s the only one I remember from that time.” Knowing that we won’t have to wear a pair of funny glasses to get the full effect of “Dark Shadows” makes us even more excited for the May 11 release! Are you excited that Burton and company are keeping the time-travel plot out of “Dark Shadows”? Sound off in the comments below and tweet me @JohnMitchell83 with your thoughts and suggestions for future columns! Check out everything we’ve got on “Dark Shadows.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos Talk Nerdy To Me
When Lars von Trier’s latest masterpiece Melancholia last had any real time in the awards spotlight, Kirsten Dunst was accepting the Best Actress hardware at Cannes . News came over the weekend that their drought is over: The National Society of Film Critics voted Melancholia its Best Picture of 2011, with Dunst again earning Best Actress for her role as a depressed bride coming to grips with the end of the world. Other honorees included Terrence Malick, Brad Pitt, Albert Brooks and Jessica Chastain; read on for the full list of winners, runners-up and voting totals. BEST PICTURE *1. Melancholia – 29 (Lars von Trier) 2. The Tree of Life – 28 (Terrence Malick) 3. A Separation – 20 (Asghar Farhadi) BEST DIRECTOR *1. Terrence Malick – 31 ( The Tree of Life ) 2. Martin Scorsese – 29 ( Hugo ) 3. Lars von Trier – 23 ( Melancholia ) BEST ACTOR *1. Brad Pitt – 35 ( Moneyball, The Tree of Life ) 2. Gary Oldman – 22 ( Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy ) 3. Jean Dujardin – 19 ( The Artist ) BEST ACTRESS *1. Kirsten Dunst – 39 ( Melancholia ) 2. Yun Jung-hee – 25 ( Poetry ) 3. Meryl Streep – 20 ( The Iron Lady ) BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR *1. Albert Brooks – 38 ( Drive ) 2. Christopher Plummer – 24 ( Beginners ) 3. Patton Oswalt – 19 ( Young Adult ) BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS *1. Jessica Chastain – 30 ( The Tree of Life, Take Shelter, The Help ) 2. Jeannie Berlin – 19 ( Margaret ) 3. Shailene Woodley – 17 ( The Descendants ) BEST NONFICTION *1. Cave of Forgotten Dreams – 35 (Werner Herzog) 2. The Interrupters – 26 (Steve James) 3. Into the Abyss – 18 (Werner Herzog) BEST SCREENPLAY *1. A Separation – 39 (Asghar Farhadi) 2. Moneyball – 22 (Steven Zaillian, Aaron Sorkin) 3. Midnight in Paris – 16 (Woody Allen) BEST FOREIGN-LANGUAGE FILM *1. A Separation – 67 (Asghar Farhadi) 2. Mysteries of Lisbon – 28 (Raoul Ruiz) 3. Le Havre – 22 (Aki Kaurismäki) BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY *1. The Tree of Life – 76 ( Emanuel Lubezki ) 2. Melancholia – 41 ( Manuel Alberto Claro ) 3. Hugo – 33 ( Robert Richardson ) EXPERIMENTAL Ken Jacobs, for Seeking the Monkey King . FILM HERITAGE 1. BAM Cinématek for its complete Vincente Minnelli retrospective with all titles shown on 16 mm. or 35 mm. film. 2. Lobster Films, Groupama Gan Foundation for Cinema and the Technicolor Foundation for Cinema for the restoration of the color version of George Méliès’s A Trip to the Moon . 3. New York’s Museum of Modern Art for its extensive retrospective of Weimar Cinema. 4. Flicker Alley for their box set Landmarks of Early Soviet Film . 5. Criterion Collecton for its 2-disc DVD package The Complete Jean Vigo .
Why in the world was this man up in “Modern Maternity” trying on nursing bras and baby bumps anyway ?!?!?!?! A Norman man trying on bras and dresses at a Penn Square Mall maternity store exposed himself to an employee, police said. Jeffrey Don Watson, 48, was booked into the Oklahoma County jail Wednesday on a complaint of indecent exposure and is free on $2,000 bail. Watson walked into Modern Maternity on Dec. 27 and started trying on dresses. He asked the store manager for help trying on bras, according to an arrest warrant affidavit. The manager told police Watson, whom she identified through a photo lineup, asked for assistance with a baby bump, an aid that replicates the shape of a woman’s stomach during the stages of pregnancy. Friggin weirdos, man. Source
Girl Scouts Of America is turning 100 years old in 2012, and while the organization retains its core values of environmentalism, loyalty, leadership, and service to others, its program is getting a major makeover to bring it into the modern era. We spoke with new CEO Anna Maria Chávez about the new Girl Scouts brand, Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : B2C Marketing Insider Discovery Date : 15/12/2011 20:41 Number of articles : 2
