‘They are going to have to balance the sexy versus the smutty,’ one expert tells MTV News of fine line between R and NC-17. By Christina Garibaldi “Fifty Shades of Grey” Photo: The Writer’s Coffee Shop “Fifty Shades of Grey” is on quite the hot streak lately — so hot, it’s even been pulled from some library shelves . Millions of readers can’t put down E.L James’ erotic novel, which started out as fan fiction based on Edward Cullen and Bella Swan in “Twilight.” The book follows the unlikely romance of college student Anastasia Steele and billionaire tycoon Christian Grey. Both are looking for different things out of the romance: She yearns for lasting love while he’s strictly in it for the S&M. From the plot alone, it’s easy to see why “Fifty Shades” has become a best-seller, and now that it’s been picked up by Universal Pictures and Focus Features to be made into a movie, the question is: How can a book that screams for an NC-17 rating actually be made into an R-rated flick? “Making this movie will absolutely be a challenge. It is going to take a devoted director who admittedly likes the books and understands that, first and foremost, this is a love story,” Lisa Parker from FiftyShadesFilm.com told MTV News. “If telling the love story is the main focus, then we do believe the steamy sex scenes can be shot and edited in a way to get us an R-rated movie rather than NC-17.” Another factor to keep in mind is that bigger actors may be more eager to take on the lead roles if the content is a little more conservative. Robert Pattinson and Ian Somerhalder have already been rumored for the role of Christian Grey , and they might be wary to tackle an NC-17 movie. The director and screenwriter will also have to find a balance between the emotional love story and the sensual scenes, since the intimate part of the story is one of the big reasons people are clamoring to get their hands on this book. “I think they are most definitely going to have a challenge,” Mags Vazquez from LatersBaby.net said. “They are going to have to balance the sexy versus the smutty, and I think they’ll have a challenge, but it’s something that I’m sure they will be able to do tastefully.” If the studio is going for an R-rated film, readers will have to understand that not every sexual plotline of the story will make it onto the big screen. “I hopefully think the fans would be realistic and understand that they can’t show some of the things that they are talking about in that book,” Vazquez acknowledged. On the other hand, the sexual content of the story is what has made “Fifty Shades” so popular, and Parker believes that if it had an NC-17 rating attached to it, fans of the book will still make it a point to see the film. “That doesn’t mean that we believe having an NC-17 rating attached to this movie would make it less wildly popular. … The scenes that could make it necessary for this rating are part of the story, part of what makes ‘Fifty,’ ‘Fifty,’ “Parker said. “They also inform the relationship between Christian and Ana. Once again, we are confident that Ms. James will protect the integrity of her story regardless of the ultimate rating.” Do you think “Fifty Shades of Grey” will be an R-rated flick? Let us know in the comments! For young Hollywood news, fashion and “Twilight” updates around the clock, visit HollywoodCrush.MTV.com .
‘I’m able to tell him how to treat a lady,’ Bieber jokes to MTV News about the MC. By Jocelyn Vena, with reporting by Sway Calloway Justin Bieber and Drake Photo: George Pimentel/Getty Images Justin Bieber and Drake started bubbling to the top of the music-industry surface around the same time. While Drake had already had a career on the small screen on “Degrassi: The Next Generation,” it was his rap game that would solidify him as an international star. Just as Drizzy was trying to carve out his path in the world of hip-hop several years ago, Bieber began posting videos on YouTube under the moniker KidRauhl. Somewhere along the way, the two got famous and became besties. And now, as Bieber nears the June 19 release of his new album, Believe, he explained what it’s like to traverse the sometimes murky waters of celebrity with his friend by his side. “I mean, it’s crazy because we both are kind of going on the same journey on different sides of the world,” the pop star told MTV News. “I think it’s so cool because we kind of both get what each other go through and he’s able to give me different pieces of advice and I’m able to tell him how to treat a lady. I’m just kidding.” While both have gained tons of fame and fortune, back in 2009 the hype around these two Canadians was at a fevered pitch. Bieber was readying the release of his buzzy debut, My World, and Drake was dropping his star-making EP, So Far Gone. While some have come and gone in the years since, the excitement hasn’t quieted down around Bieber and Drake. In fact, as both performers gain more and more momentum in their careers, it seems their friendship has only grown stronger. For Bieber’s next album, the pals decided to take their friendship to the next level with a collaboration . “We talk about everything,” Bieber said of their recording session. “He’s a great guy and super-talented, and his melodies are crazy. When we go into the studio, he’ll go in the booth and he’ll do some melodies and we’ll write. If I’m in the studio there’s not really any time to mess around. It’s always different, but always [there to] get the work done.” Bieber confirmed that the Drake collaboration definitely made the cut and that he’s still working on getting already-recorded collaborations with romantic rival Kanye West , Usher and Taylor Swift on the album as well. Related Videos MTV First: Justin Bieber
‘The costumes were more damaging than the actual fight sequences,’ actress says during ‘MTV First,’ tonight at 7:56 p.m. ET on MTV. By Kara Warner, with reporting by Josh Horowitz Charlize Theron in “Snow White and the Huntsman” Photo: Universal Studios Of all the things to be psyched to see in Kristen Stewart’s upcoming action adventure “Snow White and the Huntsman,” we are most enthused about the A-list girl-on-girl action that is Stewart’s Snow White vs. Charlize Theron ‘s Evil Queen Ravenna. With just a few more hours to wait until “MTV First: Snow White and the Huntsman,” starting tonight at 7:56 p.m. ET on MTV, here’s a little sneak peek of Theron talking about those highly anticipated fight sequences and the surprising culprit responsible for her on-set bruises. “The costumes were more damaging than the actual fight sequences,” Theron revealed. “I was way more bruised from my costume than I was from [fighting with Stewart]. Doing a fight sequence in your sweatpants is different than wearing an 80-pound steel thing. I don’t know, you were in leather,” she said to her co-star Chris Hemsworth. “It’s different. [Stewart] was in full metal, I was in full metal, just getting down, it took us four hours,” she said, speaking of the complex setting involved in filming her showdown with Stewart. The “Young Adult” actress has been reluctant to divulge any gory details about their climactic fight scenes, but she did offer up some praise for the “Twilight” star. “She was a good fight,” Theron said . The bitch brought it!” Speaking of those precarious costumes, the film’s Oscar-winning costume designer Colleen Atwood recently told us that despite the metal confinements, Theron knew how to work it in her dark and dangerous-looking wardrobe. “You can’t design for [Queen] Ravenna without having Charlize to work the costume. We had a great time,” Atwood said . “She wanted to have fun with it and not be too strapped into the clich
‘We knew the film would be judged by the success of the Hulk,’ ‘Avengers’ visual-effects supervisor tells MTV News. By Josh Wigler Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man in “Avengers” Photo: Marvel/Disney At the end of the day, “Marvel’s The Avengers” is all about character. If the viewer doesn’t feel invested in the conflict between Tony Stark and Steve Rogers, the inner-turmoil Bruce Banner feels as he keeps “the other guy” at bay or any other number of relationships, then the movie as a whole simply does not work. Thankfully, all those things work with flying colors due to the winning combination of Joss Whedon’s direction and script and the performances from Earth’s mightiest actors themselves. But while story is a crucial component to the success of “The Avengers,” spectacle cannot be downplayed as another essential ingredient. The film’s visual-effects supervisor Jeff White and his team had their work more than cut out for them when approaching “The Avengers,” a movie filled with no fewer than six superheroes, one particularly nasty supervillain and an entire alien armada to fight for his cause. MTV News spoke with White about his work on the film, what he viewed as the greatest visual-effects challenges, why the Hulk was key to the movie’s success and what it was like working with Whedon. The Biggest Challenge In short? Everything. “At the end of the day, with ‘Avengers,’ there were so many things to get right,” White told MTV News about the biggest difficulties facing his team. “We created a lot of New York City for the film and needed to build flying shots of Iron Man all from photography. We had to build a new Iron Man suit — the Mark VII — and Stark Tower. We had to build the alien race. When you add all of those things up, there are quite a few challenges there.” That’s not even mentioning the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier, the floating base of operations for Earth’s mightiest heroes. “That was a massive undertaking,” White said. “The challenge was not only building the Helicarrier, but then having to build the atrium underneath that you fly into. Then we had to build all of the set dressing to make it feel like it was a populated vehicle: the flight crew, digital doubles, the vehicles pulling objects around, planes on the deck … all of that stuff, if it’s not there, makes everything feel very CG, because it’d be so empty.” We Have a Hulk … Still, if there was one particular ingredient White had to get right, the answer is easy: the Hulk. Already a big fan of Bruce Banner’s monstrous alter-ego going into the project, White said so much of “Avengers” leans on the existence of a compelling Jade Giant. “It was important to deliver on the performance that Joss was looking for. He knew exactly the Hulk he wanted to bring to the big screen. All of the great moments Hulk has in the film was Joss really guiding us there,” White said of creating the latest take on Hulk. “We wanted this guy to be as photo-real as we could make him. He’s not in a solo film; he’s part of an ensemble team. We wanted it to feel very natural when he’s sitting in that circle of Avengers. We didn’t want him to pop off or seem separate from the rest of them. So in that vein, we spent a lot of time working on his skin and his hair and his teeth, just to make sure that all of that was believable.” … But They Have an Army Just as important are the enemies Hulk goes up against — namely the Chitauri, the alien warriors Loki recruits to help him take over Earth. As they’re not the most iconic creatures in Marvel Comics lore, the “Avengers” design team had some freedom in bringing the heroes’ enemies to the big screen. “They’d done some initial designs at Marvel, as far as getting their overall forms in place. They came up with this idea of a mixture of metals and leather and skin, and then we ran with that as far as what the textural details were, making sure that the chariots had enough variety in them, making sure that when we initially started, we wouldn’t see the aliens with their helmets off — and then through the course of production, we do see them that way,” White said. “That was a whole round of design processes: What do they look like? What do their heads look like under that armor? I think one of the great parts of them is they’re wearing all of that armor — it’s worn, they’ve clearly been through several battles — but you can still see their eyes in there. That’s an important part of connecting them as a threat to the Avengers.” Release the Leviathan The Chitauri foot soldiers aren’t the only threats the Avengers have to worry about in the film. There are also the massive Leviathans, giant sky serpents hell-bent on destroying Manhattan. “That’s all about scale,” White said of those creatures. “It was such a great opportunity to have these massive creatures ambling around New York. Part of their design was to put these wings on them, which made them too wide to fit down a New York street, which in turn led us to have them tearing through buildings and causing mayhem everywhere they go.” Some fans have likened the Leviathans to something out of a Michael Bay “Transformers” movie — an observation that’s all the more interesting when considering White’s previous visual-effects work on those very same films. “You can see where the ‘Transformers’ comparisons come from as far as the trailers go. But when you see how the Leviathans operate in the film, and the role they fill and what drives them forward, there’s a pretty big difference,” White said. “Driller from ‘Transformers’ was all metal and all machine, digging through the ground to take down a building. These guys are actually organic beneath all of that armor. They have these worn gold plates and energy signatures that ripple down the side. We really tried to make sure that they felt unique. But I agree, when the first trailer came out, that [‘Transformers’ similarity] was a component of it, but when you see them in the entire film, they really serve a very different purpose.” The Geek God’s Influence Creating aerial bases, giant green rage-monsters, chariot-riding aliens and massive flying serpents is all well and good, but for White, the real thrill of working on “Avengers” was collaborating with Whedon, a storyteller who White was already very fond of going into the project. “It was fantastic,” White said of working with Whedon. “He’s involved in the [visual-effects] process every step of the way. Joss is so good at working with actors, and that extended right through working with animation and trying to get that same performance, really coaching us along. ‘Here’s what we want to see, here’s where you really want that look to get the emotion across his face.’ Everything he does so well with writing and actors really translated into his direction for working with the Hulk. He was involved in the entire effects process and every review. It was great working with him.” Tell us what you thought of the visual effects in “The Avengers” in the comments section or on Twitter ! Check out everything we’ve got on “Marvel’s The Avengers.” For breaking news and previews of the latest comic book movies — updated around the clock — visit SplashPage.MTV.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘The Avengers’ Related Photos ‘Avengers’ Assemble At Los Angeles Premiere
Welcome to THG’s Week in Review! Below, our staffers look back at the stories, stars and scandals that made the last seven days some of the craziest ALL MONTH. If you don’t already, FOLLOW THG on Twitter , Google+ and Facebook for 24/7/365 news. Every day, week and year, let us be your celebrity gossip source! Now, a rundown of the week that was at The Hollywood Gossip : Kate Upton “Cat Daddy” Dance Kate Upton’s “Cat Daddy” dance basically took over the Internet. Justin Bieber’s “Boyfriend” music video was finally released. Beyonce is apparently not a big fan of Kim Kardashian . Genevieve Cook was revealed as President Obama’s ex. Ashton Kutcher’s Popchips ad was pulled, possibly racist. George Zimmerman’s MySpace was revealed, and telling. Octomom is bankrupt . Like for real. The Beastie Boys’ MCA, a.k.a. Adam Yauch , passed away at 47. NFL star Junior Seau was found dead , taking his own life at 43. Kristen Stewart was named the World’s Best Dressed Star. Vanessa Williams totally called out Toddlers & Tiaras . Some random freak is stalking Kate Gosselin over Twitter. Pepsi will soon roll out a new Michael Jackson ad campaign . Sofia Vergara ‘s GQ Mexico cover was also a big hit. Patricia Krentcil Tanning Arrest Patricia Krentcil , a.k.a. Tanning Mom, got arrested. See why above. Prince William and Kate Middleton marked a year of marriage. Three grandmothers offered some Kim K. sex tape analysis . Jenelle Evans’ boob job looks like it’s a done deal. Dayana Mendoza got fired on Celebrity Apprentice. Gabriel Aubry wants a lot in child support . The American Idol Top 4 are set. Jessica Simpson gave birth to a baby girl, Maxwell Drew Johnson. A new Casey Anthony voicemail does not portray her positively. More racy photos of Paulina Gretzky were posted. By her. Jaleel White was ousted on Dancing With the Stars . The Bachelorette spoilers continue to trickle in. Anna Paquin swears bisexuality is real . Jeremy Britt won The Biggest Loser . The Dark Knight Rises Movie Trailer The Dark Knight Rises trailer (above) was released, and is awesome. Ditto The Amazing Spider-Man trailer , just a few days afterward. Selena Gomez is looking forward to being a role model in life. Lady Gaga and Taylor Kinney broke up after 10 months together. Chris Harrison and his wife split after 18 years (years!) together. President Obama rocked the White House Correspondents’ dinner . Patrick Schwarzenegger’s prom photo was awfully sweet … What was the highlight of the week for you? Did we leave anything out?
Documentaries don’t have to be technically great to be irresistible, and Bess Kargman’s First Position , which follows six young ballet dancers as they prepare for an elite competition, is a case in point. You may think you can guess what’s going to happen by the end of First Position : Some will win and others won’t, there will be some tears shed, this or that dancer will be sidelined by an injury – and yet somehow, even though nothing hugely surprising happens, the details Kargman captures somehow feel fresh. Maybe that’s because this isn’t just a documentary about ballet and the extraordinary discipline it requires; it’s also about youth and its attendant hopes and risks, spelled out in language that’s painfully universal. Kargman follows her six young dancers on their way to the Youth America Grand Prix, an international dance competition held in New York and judged by a group of professionals including reps from ballet schools around the world: A dancers who does well in the competition might be rewarded with a scholarship, or even a slot in a ballet company. This competition is serious business for these kids, all of whom hope to make some sort of life for themselves by dancing. Eleven-year-old Aran Bell, an American who comes from a military family, is an elfin presence who introduces himself to Kargman’s camera, and to us, by trying to articulate what he loves about ballet: “I just love it so much. I can’t explain it.” He shows us around his home, where he demonstrates various torture implements used for stretching muscles. He also picks up a BB gun, wisely noting that it’s probably better not to shoot it – a reminder that this exquisite dancer is still, at heart, just a boy. We also meet Rebecca Houseknecht, a middle-American teen who loves the color pink and whose high-school friends have nicknamed her Barbie, partly because of her ultra-shiny blonde hair and partly because of her mad flexibility. Then there’s the charming and understated Joan Sebastion Zamora, from Colombia, who hopes to do well in ballet so he can improve the lives of his family members back home, a risky proposition if ever there was one. Miko and Jules Fogarty, brother and sister, strive to do well under the watchful – possibly too watchful – eye of their mother. Most affecting of all is Michaela, a teenager who, as a child, was orphaned during the civil war in Sierra Leone. She and another girl were adopted by an American couple, and when Michaela explains how awestruck and grateful she is to have come so far in ballet, there’s no doubt about how much she means it. (We also see her mother, a white woman in her 60s, bent over a pot on the family’s kitchen stove as she dyes some stretch tulle for one of her daughter’s costumes. It’s sold as “flesh-toned,” she explains, but that means it’s flesh-toned for white people, requiring a bath in brown dye to match the color of her daughter’s skin.) Kargman shoots the dancers simply but carefully as they rehearse and, ultimately, perform: There’s no fancy camera work or editing here, thank God. Her camera takes pleasure in their movement, and also tracks the occasional flicker of pain. (Michaela is forced to rehearse and dance despite having suffered an injury, lest she lose her shot at a scholarship or a job – her future hinges on this competition.) This is Kargman’s debut feature, and she’s adept at telling interlocking stories without getting sidetracked by unnecessary minutiae; the picture is as smooth as an expert, seemingly effortless plié. There’s a great deal of joy in it, too. Kargman doesn’t make what these kids do seem easy, not by a long shot. But she does manage to capture, without words, the essence of why they’re driven to, as one of the dancers puts it, force their bodies to do all kinds of things they weren’t meant to do. As Joan performs in the movie’s finale, his movements are so fluid his muscles could almost be liquid, though we can clearly see how solid and defined they are. And Aran’s spritely routine, exuberant but disciplined, places him right at the magical midpoint between childhood and young adulthood. What drives these dancers to work so hard at creating beauty for our pleasure and delight? The answer is written on their faces and in their muscles; words would be useless in explaining it. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
I didn’t know Sharper Image was a porn shop…not that I consider this to be actual porn…it’s just Megan Fox in her panties and thigh highs screaming “THE MOVIE BUSINESS ISN’T LUCRATIVE ENOUGH FOR ME TO NOT TAKE SMUTTY PHOTOSHOOT JOBS FOR SHITTY MAIL ORDER CATALOGS”…..let’s just hope this public shame, no matter how much it paid her, makes her really reflect on her life choices and cunt behavior when she was at the top…more importantly…makes her really evaluate not getting naked in movies…even though now when she bites the bullet and does it…she’ll be a mom with a mom body….not as tight as she should be…but I’ll take a bitch naked at any point in her career cuz I proves they’ve realized what makes the girl go round….bitches getting naked…
‘NY Times critic AO Scott needs a new job! Let’s help him find one! One he can ACTUALLY do!’ Jackson tweets. By Gil Kaufman Samuel L. Jackson Photo: Jason Merritt/ Getty Images Is there anyone on the planet at this point who doesn’t know that Samuel L. Jackson is a man not to be trifled with? Whether it’s snakes at 20,000 feet or dopey college kids who try to rip off his boss, the highest-grossing actor of all time is a badass both on and off the screen. Which might explain why he was a bit miffed when, amid the almost universal acclaim for “The Avengers,” he read the a review from New York Times critic A.O. Scott that was not entirely positive. The veteran critic wrote , “‘The Avengers’ is hardly worth raging about, its failures are significant and dispiriting … The light, amusing bits cannot overcome the grinding, hectic emptiness, the bloated cynicism that is less a shortcoming of this particular film than a feature of the genre.” But the part that likely stung the most was his takedown of Jackson’s role as eye patch-wearing Nick Fury, head of spy agency S.H.I.E.L.D., which Scott called, “more master of ceremonies than mission commander.” Say what again? “#Avengers fans, NY Times critic AO Scott needs a new job!,” Jackson tweeted on Thursday. “Let’s help him find one! One he can actually do!” The blast set off some conversations with a few fans, including one who replied, “@SamuelLJackson the critic has a right to his opinion. Just because the movie has made a ton of money does not mean it is a good movie.” Considering that “The Avengers” has set some overseas box office records and is on track to potentially smash U.S. high-water marks, Jackson replied, “Actually, sometimes IT DOES!” The back-and-forth kept going, with another disappointed Twitter user taking issue with Jackson’s furious anger and “irrational” response to the negative review, asking if people are still entitled to their own opinions? “That is My Opinion!” Jackson replied. “What’s irrational about it? They aren’t going to fire his jaundiced ass & You & I Know It!” Are you seeing “The Avengers” this weekend? Let us know in the comments section below or on Twitter! Check out everything we’ve got on “The Avengers.” For breaking news and previews of the latest comic book movies — updated around the clock — visit SplashPage.MTV.com . Related Videos Get Psyched For ‘Avengers’
One good ammo-riddled torrent of multiplex marketing deserves another, right? Never mind. Ready or not, and on the heels of this afternoon’s wild End of Watch spot , behold a new trailer for The Expendables 2 . It’s got more bullets than brain cells, and someone literally died in one of these explosions (or at least one like them), but who can argue with Arnold Schwarzengger quipping, “I’m back!” or Jason Statham issuing a smirking pronouncement of “man and knife”? I’m pretty sure this is the first trailer to ever give viewers PTSD — and that’s just after Sylvester Stallone’s intro. [ IGN ]
While talking up this month’s Men in Black III – in which he does an uncanny Tommy Lee Jones impersonation playing Jones’ ‘60s-era younger self – Josh Brolin took a moment to discuss the upcoming project that makes him nervous just to think about: Spike Lee ’s Oldboy , the remake of Park Chan-wook’s ultraviolent 2003 film, for which Brolin says he sought Park’s blessing before taking on the Hollywood remake. “I love Oldboy and I’m close with Chan-wook Park and I emailed him a couple months ago just asking for his blessing to do this movie,” said Brolin, “because if he had said no I wouldn’t have done it. I really respect his movie and we’ll make a little different movie, and this whole idea of a more Hollywood version of it, whatever – we’re just going to do a different version and have respect for the initial story and premise.” “I’m talking about it nervously because it makes me nervous.” Brolin will be joined in the cast by rising ingénue Elizabeth Olsen and District 9 ’s Sharlto Copley , the latter of whom sent his own message to Brolin when he joined the cast. “He just wrote me an email and was like, ‘Look, I’ve got to get this out of the way – Goonies was my favorite film! Now I’m going to make 20 years of your life miserable,’” Brolin said. The details of just how much Lee’s remake will stay true to the original film remain a mystery, though Brolin did confirm that their version will keep the infamous hammer fight scene. “Yes, by the way,” he said. “Yes. It’s a hammer, a knife, and all that stuff. Will we keep the octopus and the other stuff? You know, there are some changes and all that. But I think it’s really good. It still makes me throw down the script halfway through.” Filming begins in October on the anticipated project, and while Brolin seems confident that the remake will remain true to the source material while carving its own path, he knows a thing or two about woulda-coulda-shoulda thinking. Elsewhere in the conversation, Brolin brought up the specter of his 2010 bomb Jonah Hex unprompted. “I think that was a snowball effect,” he said, citing the film’s meteoric plunge in the media. “It got so much negative press, because we did so many reshoots, we did a ton of reshoots, man. I’m going to stand behind any movie that I do, and I do like the character. If I go back and see it now, I go, ‘That’s an interesting character.’ It’s not the movie I would have made. My intention was to make an Eastwood/Leone-esque really gritty $5-7 million film that I think would have been massively profitable, but you don’t have control over these things all the time.” Despite all that, Brolin learned a long time ago to embrace the serendipity of perceived failure – like when he lost the lead in 21 Jump Street to Johnny Depp . “ 21 Jump Street was between Johnny Depp and I,” he recalled. “Johnny got it, but we were in his apartment waiting to find out which one was going to actually leave on a plane that night.” Asked how he dealt with the disappointment of losing that gig, he laughed. “I love that you think 21 Jump Street was a huge disappointment! Johnny called me a year later and said, ‘Dude, this is awful!’” Stay tuned for more from Brolin, Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, and Barry Sonnenfeld on Men in Black III . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
