Matt Lauer Fired ! According to a new report, the odds of seeing that headline are increasing by the day. Sources tell Radar Online that new Today Show producer Alexandra Wallace has made it very clear: Lauer will be a goner if program ratings do not improve. “ The Today Show has always been considered a cash cow for the network,” says this insider. “It dominated the morning news ratings for years and brought in millions of dollars in ad revenue. “But if viewers continue preferring Good Morning America over The Today Show that revenue will decrease and cuts will have to be made.” And if this major move is made? “The replacement is likely to be Willie Geist,” adds the source. “He has been wildly popular with viewers and the crew since he was named co-host of the third hour of the show.” Last Wednesday, Today lost to GMA by 1.3 million viewers, the largest gap in 10 years. NBC News President Steve Capus has defended Lauer against blame for the ratings decline, making it interesting to see what happens if it really does continue. What do you think? Should Lauer be fired? Yes No Maybe View Poll »
The hills will soon be alive with the sound of … Carrie Underwood! The most successful American Idol winner of all-time has signed on to star in next year’s NBC remake of The Sound of Music . “Speaking for everyone at NBC, we couldn’t be happier to have the gifted Carrie Underwood take up the mantle of the great Maria von Trapp,” said Robert Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment, which will air the three-hour movie in late 2013. Julie Andrews made this role famous in the 1965 film that won the Oscar for Best Picture. Underwood has appeared on How I Met Your Mother and the flick Soul Surfer . No word yet regarding who will play the musical’s male lead, Captain Von Trapp.
For reasons that defy comprehension, Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries remain married. Lawyers for both halves of this estranged couple met in court yesterday, with Kim’s representative complaining that her client is “handcuffed” to Humphries – and not in the usual Kim Kardashian way! So… what the heck is the hold-up here? “Kris is adamant that he wants the [engagement] ring back,” a source tells Radar Online. “And it’s becoming a real sticking point between his and Kim’s attorneys… ” Kris contends that the marriage was a total sham and that Kim only wed him for publicity so therefore she has no right to keep such an expensive gift.” The gift in question cost around $2 million and is 20.5 carats in size. Why would Kim even want to keep it , Humphries allegedly wonders. Why would Kris care , we can shoot back. The guy makes millions of dollars a year playing basketball for a living… when he isn’t getting ejected from games , that is. It’s just another wrinkle in the Kim Kardashian divorce case that will last until February 15th at the earliest. That’s when a judge has set the next hearing. Who do you think takes most of the blame for this mess? Kim Kardashian Kris Humphries Oh my frickin God, they both just need to go far, far away! View Poll »
Lindsay Lohan may have just set the new high water mark for celebrity train wrecks. She’s been hit with FOUR criminal charges on the same day – on different coasts! Police in New York City arrested Lindsay Lohan this morning, which we’ll get to in a moment. Amazingly, the fight she got into may be the least of her problems. The Santa Monica City Attorney’s Office will charge the celebrity with three crimes in connection with her car accident last June on Pacific Coast Highway: Giving false information to a peace officer (carrying a sentence of up to 6 months in jail) Obstructing / resisting a police officer in the performance of his duty (up to a year in jail) Reckless driving (up to 90 days in jail) After ramming her Porsche into a big rig on the PCH, the star she lied to cops, telling them she was the passenger in the car when in fact she was the driver. As a result of those three charges, the judge will likely revoke her probation any day now – for stealing jewelry – and set a hearing to determine her punishment. One of the conditions of probation is that Lindsay must obey all laws … LOL. Then there’s this morning, 3,000 miles away in the city that never sleeps. Lohan punched another woman in the face and got popped for assault. If she’s formally charged with that, her probation could also be revoked in a big way. Apparently, the brawl at Club Avenue was over Max George (from the boy band The Wanted), who was turned off by the fact that LiLo was sloppy drunk . Lindsay went to the Justin Bieber concert last night in NYC, but only to see The Wanted, his opening act. Lohan’s had a thing for Max these last few days. Sources say Lindsay tried to get backstage after the concert, but was blocked. Later that evening, Lindsay met up with Max and his boy band mates at the bar. As the evening wore on, Lindsay got blitzed out of her mind, and it turned Max off. He then started talking to another woman, which enraged Lindsay. That woman is the one Lindsay Lohan is accused of arguing with and punching. Hilariously, Max met another girl in the club and went home with her instead. Lindsay, meanwhile, ended up in the slammer. A day in the life … [Photos: WENN.com]
Hugh Jackman is in talks for the role in the film that is looking like an X-Men: First Class sequel. Also in the news, Angela Bassett is joining Gregg Araki’s latest; Plans are in the works for a Humphrey Bogart Film Festival; China’s box office set to surge to number one; And the Hamptons International Film Festival gets new leadership. Hugh Jackman Eyes Reprising Wolverine in New X-Men Movie Jackman is in negotiations to reprise the role in the movie with is shaping up as a sequel to X-Men: First Class , featuring actors from the first X-Men trilogy – the first two of which were directed by Bryan Singer. Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence and Nicholas Hoult are also on board, THR reports . George Clooney, Paul Greengrass Plot Crime Thriller Greengrass will direct and produce the project along with Clooney and Grant Heslov, with writer Chris Terrio. Clooney will star in the project which re-teams some of the main figures behind Argo , Variety reports . Angela Bassett Joins Gregg Araki’s White Bird in a Blizzard She joins Gabourey Sidibe and will play Dr. Thaler in the indie drama about a young woman whose life spins out control when her mother disappears, Deadline reports . Humphrey Bogart Film Festival to Host Film Noir And, of course, a parade of Humphrey Bogart films are also on tap for the event taking place – naturally – in Key Largo, FL. The inaugural edition will be held on May 2-5, 2013. The festival will be hosted by Stephen Humphrey Bogart, the son of Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall, and will feature preeminent film historian and critic Leonard Maltin. China Box Office Expected to Surpass U.S. by 2020 China has already surpassed Japan as the number 2 movie market. It’s media and entertainment industry is expected to grow 17% annually through 2015, Deadline reports . Hamptons International Film Festival Appoints New Head Longtime advisor Anne Chaisson has been named the festival’s new Executive Director. She has been an advisory co-chair since 2003. Director of Programming David Nugent, meanwhile, has been promoted to Artistic Director at the organization.
Killing Them Softly is set in Boston, maybe. Someone mentions living in Somerville, a scattering of the characters have the accent, and they talk about going down to Florida. But the film was shot in New Orleans, often in the industrial edges still ragged from Hurricane Katrina, and the only people who seem to inhabit its universe are gangsters — high level ones with pretentions of civility and hardscrabble losers struggling to get a few dollars together by way of hazardous schemes. What ties this abstract, violent place to the real world is the 2008 presidential election, which provides a backdrop for its tale of an ill-advised robbery and the guy brought in to clean up after it. There’s George W. Bush talking about the bailout on a TV in the corner as two guys knock over a card game; there’s Barack Obama promising change on a billboard over a neighborhood filled with empty lots and abandoned houses. It’s a neat idea, matching the brisk kill-or-be-killed business of unforgiving criminal life to an America staggering from the economic crisis. But as in his last feature, the gorgeous and stiltedly self-conscious The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford , Australian filmmaker Andrew Dominik shows a tendency to lean too hard on his symbolism rather than letting it exist as part of the whole. In Jesse James it was the tying in of the last days of the outlaw to a meditation on celebrity. Here, it’s the capitalism-as-a-disease parallels on a national and narrative scale that start to feel on the nose long before a character barks “America’s not a country, it’s a business — now fucking pay me!” and Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want)” plays over the closing credits. But when Dominik , working off his own screenplay adaptation of a novel by George V. Higgins, is less focused on trying to make an important movie, he turns out an indisputably fun one, a stylish and flamboyantly macho affair that cribs pleasantly from Mamet, Blue Velvet , Tarantino and Scorsese . The film starts with Frankie (Scoot McNairy), a ferrety guy recently out of prison and eager to convince his Australian pal Russell ( Ben Mendelsohn , memorably scary in Animal Kingdom ) to get in with him on a job. Russell’s working his own scheme involving kidnapping purebred dogs and using the money to buy an ounce of heroin and become a dealer, but Frankie’s pal Johnny (Vincent Curatola) has what he claims is a foolproof gig. They’ll rob a poker game run by a guy named Markie ( Ray Liotta ), who arranged to hold up his own game once in the past and got away with it. The games are protected, but if his gets robbed again everyone will assume he’s the one behind it. Killing Them Softly starts off with its main heist, if it can be called that, and then turns to the fallout, letting things rattle along for a considerable amount of time before introducing Jackie ( Brad Pitt ), a guy who can’t really be described as a hero or antihero. Jackie’s a fixer and a hitman who’s filling in for the last go-to guy, Dillon (Sam Shepard, glimpsed only in flashbacks), and he’s a competent, no nonsense figure in a world full of fuck-ups. Dominik’s film is interesting in that the crimes themselves, whether stick-ups or killings, are rarely difficult — it’s the aftermath that gets people in trouble, when they can’t keep their mouths shut about what they just pulled off or don’t know when to cut their losses and get out of town. Dominik shows an open appreciation for his actors and for the way tough guys, aspiring and genuine, talk to each other — and Killing Them Softly is as much centered around talking as it is action. Pitt, playing a practical know-it-all who falls somewhere between Rusty Ryan and Tyler Durden, is terribly entertaining shooting the shit with Driver (Richard Jenkins), the representative of the unspecified group who hired him, the two complaining about the new “total corporate mentality” like disgruntled office workers on a smoke break. Later, he brings in Mickey (James Gandolfini) from New York to help out, and watches him with worried calculation as he turns out to be in rough shape. If gangsterism is just capitalism in a more raw form, then Jackie is the creature best suited for this world. He knows the rules and enforces them without prejudice, because it’s just business and this is just a job. Killing Them Softly doesn’t give that idea its intended sting. The film wants to be angry and scathing, but, to its credit, enjoys its characters and its mechanics too much to have a sharp edge. Whether it’s showing someone’s death in a luxurious slow motion spray of bullets and glass or lingering as someone drunkenly reminisces about a girl he sometimes sleeps with but has no hold on, the film is too fond of its rich details to allow them to become damning symbols of the system in which they can be found. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
James Rolfe is the Angry Video Game Nerd, a man who knows how to define a niche. His eponymous online videos have featured on YouTube, ScrewAttack, GameTrailers, Opie & Anthony and Cinemassacre, and for eight years anyone who ever wanted to watch a man get extremely angry while screaming about old video games knew exactly where to go. And a lot of people did. The series is the textbook — no, the wiki entry — for online viral success. Initially made as a laugh for a few friends, the early videos became YouTube sensations and spawned over a hundred episodes, millions of hits, multiple DVDs, and now the the impossible dream of most online video makers: a full feature film. It’s another victory for crowd funding. Rolfe http://www.indiegogo.com/Angry-Video-Game-Nerd-The-Movie
Andrew Dominik does not look like a guy who could teach this country a lesson. With his floppy hair, fashionable glasses and ever-present cigarette, he resembles the kind of international hipster you’d find brandishing his American Express black card in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District on a Thursday night. But don’t be fooled by appearances. With the help of Brad Pitt and an impressive ensemble of actors that includes James Gandolfini , the exquisite Ben Mendelsohn and a breakthrough performance by Scoot McNairy , Dominik has made a acrid — and memorably violent — cinematic statement about the state of the American Dream that should resonate with anyone whose job has become a kill-or-be-killed battlefield in the wake of the 2008 crash. Although Killing Them Softly is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ 1974 novel, Cogan’s Trade , Dominik, who wrote and directed the movie, set the picture in the middle of this country’s 2008 economic meltdown and presidential election. (News coverage of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama figures in the background.) Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a mob enforcer sent to a grim-looking New Orleans to investigate a poker-game heist, but the lowlife characters in this movie could be Wall Street bankers, film producers or overworked bloggers running and gunning to survive one more day in the rat race. There’s nothing like an outsider to point out the chinks in America’s armor, and the New Zealand-born, Australian-bred Dominik bludgeons a number of this country’s sacred cows and concepts, from Thomas Jefferson, who’s dismissed as a hypocritical “wine snob,” to “E Pluribus Unum” to the hopeful (but possibly empty) rhetoric of Barack Obama . “America’s not a country, it’s just a business,” Pitt’s character says at a key moment in the film, and given the actor’s reputation as a righteous liberal dude, it’s a brave performance. I don’t think that even Dominik would admit this, but beneath the noirish storyline, Killing Them Softly echoes the lyrics of the Who’s classic song. “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.” In a frank and fairly amusing interview, Dominik, whose credits also include the excellent Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford , shared his views on the reelection of President Obama, the “masculine confusion” that is prevalent in Killing Them Softly, his next planned picture, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel about Marilyn Monroe, Blonde, and whether Brad Pitt can remember what it was like to be normal. Movieline: After seeing Killing Them Softly , I’ve got to know if you were rooting for anyone in the presidential election. Dominik: Obama. Yeah. I ask because the message of your movie seems to be that it doesn’t matter who’s running America from the Oval office. Well I think, obviously, that the president’s powers can be fairly limited. But Obama was a better option than the other guy. That seemed to be the rationale of a lot of voters this year. I really believed Obama when he spoke in 2008, but I remember watching his victory speech after this last election and it was the same speech. Exactly the same speech. I felt like he didn’t even believe it anymore. He seemed to be tired of saying the same thing. He even made the same joke about the dog. Your film is distributed by The Weinstein Company, which is co-chaired by Harvey Weinstein , an avid supporter of President Obama. Was there any discomfort with the political aspects of your film? How tight is Harvey really with Obama? He says he’s talked with Obama. I’m sure Harvey feels tighter with Obama than Obama feels with Harvey. You know what I mean? But, yeah, he was uncomfortable about that stuff. And I think Brad was, too. But I don’t know that the movie’s really pointing its finger at Obama, specifically. It’s pointing its finger at the lie with which American was constructed — this idea that we’re all equal. Which clearly nobody believes. It takes an outsider to tell us that. What made you decide to take a 1974 George V. Higgins novel and set it in 2008 at the time of the 2008 economic crash and the presidential election? I guess it was everything going on at once. I found the book, and I needed money. And everyone around me needed money. All they were talking about was the economy. I realized that the movie was the story of an economic crisis, and I started to see parallels between this little story and the bigger story. I’ve always suspected that crime movies are really about capitalism. I didn’t watch The Sopranos and think Tony Soprano was a sociopath. He just looks like a normal guy with normal problems to me. So I felt like maybe here’s an opportunity to make a self-conscious crime film. Fiction is how we organize reality — but what are we trying to organize when we watch crime movies? I guess it’s the reality of existing in a dollar-driven society. You mentioned The Sopranos . At its core, that series was a epic parable about the George W. Bush era, and, in some respects Killing Them Softly felt like an extension or a kindred spirit of that show. Were you inspired at all by the universe that David Chase created? I love The Sopranos . It’s a fucking great, great show. But not directly as far as the movie was concerned. There are actors from the series in the movie, but I guess when you’re looking for goombah-type guys, David Chase found them all. So there’s really no getting away from it.
Andrew Dominik does not look like a guy who could teach this country a lesson. With his floppy hair, fashionable glasses and ever-present cigarette, he resembles the kind of international hipster you’d find brandishing his American Express black card in Manhattan’s Meatpacking District on a Thursday night. But don’t be fooled by appearances. With the help of Brad Pitt and an impressive ensemble of actors that includes James Gandolfini , the exquisite Ben Mendelsohn and a breakthrough performance by Scoot McNairy , Dominik has made a acrid — and memorably violent — cinematic statement about the state of the American Dream that should resonate with anyone whose job has become a kill-or-be-killed battlefield in the wake of the 2008 crash. Although Killing Them Softly is an adaptation of George V. Higgins’ 1974 novel, Cogan’s Trade , Dominik, who wrote and directed the movie, set the picture in the middle of this country’s 2008 economic meltdown and presidential election. (News coverage of both George W. Bush and Barack Obama figures in the background.) Pitt plays Jackie Cogan, a mob enforcer sent to a grim-looking New Orleans to investigate a poker-game heist, but the lowlife characters in this movie could be Wall Street bankers, film producers or overworked bloggers running and gunning to survive one more day in the rat race. There’s nothing like an outsider to point out the chinks in America’s armor, and the New Zealand-born, Australian-bred Dominik bludgeons a number of this country’s sacred cows and concepts, from Thomas Jefferson, who’s dismissed as a hypocritical “wine snob,” to “E Pluribus Unum” to the hopeful (but possibly empty) rhetoric of Barack Obama . “America’s not a country, it’s just a business,” Pitt’s character says at a key moment in the film, and given the actor’s reputation as a righteous liberal dude, it’s a brave performance. I don’t think that even Dominik would admit this, but beneath the noirish storyline, Killing Them Softly echoes the lyrics of the Who’s classic song. “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: “Meet the new boss/Same as the old boss.” In a frank and fairly amusing interview, Dominik, whose credits also include the excellent Chopper and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford , shared his views on the reelection of President Obama, the “masculine confusion” that is prevalent in Killing Them Softly, his next planned picture, an adaptation of Joyce Carol Oates’ novel about Marilyn Monroe, Blonde, and whether Brad Pitt can remember what it was like to be normal. Movieline: After seeing Killing Them Softly , I’ve got to know if you were rooting for anyone in the presidential election. Dominik: Obama. Yeah. I ask because the message of your movie seems to be that it doesn’t matter who’s running America from the Oval office. Well I think, obviously, that the president’s powers can be fairly limited. But Obama was a better option than the other guy. That seemed to be the rationale of a lot of voters this year. I really believed Obama when he spoke in 2008, but I remember watching his victory speech after this last election and it was the same speech. Exactly the same speech. I felt like he didn’t even believe it anymore. He seemed to be tired of saying the same thing. He even made the same joke about the dog. Your film is distributed by The Weinstein Company, which is co-chaired by Harvey Weinstein , an avid supporter of President Obama. Was there any discomfort with the political aspects of your film? How tight is Harvey really with Obama? He says he’s talked with Obama. I’m sure Harvey feels tighter with Obama than Obama feels with Harvey. You know what I mean? But, yeah, he was uncomfortable about that stuff. And I think Brad was, too. But I don’t know that the movie’s really pointing its finger at Obama, specifically. It’s pointing its finger at the lie with which American was constructed — this idea that we’re all equal. Which clearly nobody believes. It takes an outsider to tell us that. What made you decide to take a 1974 George V. Higgins novel and set it in 2008 at the time of the 2008 economic crash and the presidential election? I guess it was everything going on at once. I found the book, and I needed money. And everyone around me needed money. All they were talking about was the economy. I realized that the movie was the story of an economic crisis, and I started to see parallels between this little story and the bigger story. I’ve always suspected that crime movies are really about capitalism. I didn’t watch The Sopranos and think Tony Soprano was a sociopath. He just looks like a normal guy with normal problems to me. So I felt like maybe here’s an opportunity to make a self-conscious crime film. Fiction is how we organize reality — but what are we trying to organize when we watch crime movies? I guess it’s the reality of existing in a dollar-driven society. You mentioned The Sopranos . At its core, that series was a epic parable about the George W. Bush era, and, in some respects Killing Them Softly felt like an extension or a kindred spirit of that show. Were you inspired at all by the universe that David Chase created? I love The Sopranos . It’s a fucking great, great show. But not directly as far as the movie was concerned. There are actors from the series in the movie, but I guess when you’re looking for goombah-type guys, David Chase found them all. So there’s really no getting away from it.
There aren’t many more clues to be had about Quentin Tarantino ‘s Django Unchained in this exclusive Yahoo! Movies trailer , or in the director’s latest interview with The Hollywood Reporter. But he does share a nifty story about a young fan who wrote herself into a third chapter of Kill Bill . Tarantino took part in a THR roundtable that also featured Ben Affleck ( Argo ) Gus Van Sant ( Promised Land ), David O. Russell ( Silver Linings Playbook ) and Ang Lee ( Life of Pi ) . how the final cut of his hotly anticipated slavery-era story is different from the movie he originally envisioned, Tarantino replied, “It’s shorter.” But he does recount an interesting anecdote involving a fan. The director says that a “14-year-old girl wrote a little synopsis for Kill Bill Vol. 3,” explaining: “She wanted to play the daughter grown up, or at least at her age.” Tarantino says he read the synopsis and called the fan to thank her. “I thought it was just so sweet that this little girl liked the movie so much that she continued the story herself,” he said. “I always really hope that people take the story on themselves and take it to a different place and fill in the blanks that I didn’t tell them about.” Based on this Django Unchained trailer, I say — I say — I foresee some of Tarantino’s more computer-savvy fans remaking this trailer with Foghorn Leghorn playing plantation owner Calvin Candie instead of Leonardo DiCaprio. Check it out below. [ The Hollywood Reporter, Yahoo! Movies ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
