Uggie’s European sojourn carries on as planned, with appearances on both The Graham Norton Show and BBC News further bolstering the #ConsiderUggie campaign and the Artist wonder dog’s all-around awards-season cred. You cannot stop Uggie; you can only hope to contain him — with some sausages, I guess, but still. The BBC’s video is not embeddable (go here to see what Uggie thinks about that), but you can check out reporter David Sillito’s hard-hitting report at the network’s Web site. And continue to keep an eye on all things #ConsiderUggie at Facebook and Twitter ! Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Dear family Movieliners, it is with a heavy heart that I inform you that after three lovely years together — spent dissecting nearly every James Franco General Hospital performance , evaluating Sylvester Stallone’s shirtless evolution onscreen and trying desperately to make sense out of the Adam Sandler Box Office Paradox — I am setting sail for a new horizon. Although I am sad to leave my friends at Movieline, I am excited to report that beginning next week, I will be writing daily for VanityFair.com’s Hollywood Blog . Consider this a formal invitation to visit me at my new home. In the meantime though, thanks are in order. Thank you to the tirelessly intelligent S.T. VanAirsdale, the wickedly funny Seth Abramovitch and the reliably witty Kyle Buchanan, all of whom initially took a chance on me, entertained me endlessly during the work day and gave me confidence in my writing. Thank you to Christopher Rosen, who not only nurtured my work but proved to be an excellent friend and Internet conversationalist when it comes to television and planning funerals fitting for action icons. Thank you to Jen Yamato, for being such a sweet and encouraging editor with a borderline scary dedication to karaoke. (One day, I will join you on the dark side of Koreatown.) Thank you to Movieline’s critics Stephanie Zacharek and Michelle Orange for their dependably beautiful prose on even the most hopeless pieces of cinema. Thank you to Mike Ryan, for inspiring me with your original and entertaining interviews. Thank you to Mark Lisanti, for flooring me with your consistently hilarious Alan Smithee features. And lastly, thank you to Louis Virtel, who made me snort-laugh and be self-conscious of my monotone delivery more than any single person I have ever known. It was a pleasure being your droll Movieline sidekick for two plus years. And finally, thank you to the wonderfully articulate readers and commenters, who continually kept me thinking and laughing long after my posts had been published. This is starting to sound like and Oscar acceptance speech though and I am simply leaving an Internet writing job, so I’ll cut this short. I enjoyed you all over the past three years and am proud to say I wrote for Movieline . Best of wishes in the new year. As always, you can reach out to me about Lifetime movies, cats and jigsaw puzzles on my Twitter feed ( @juliewmiller ) and beginning next week, you can read my musings on Hollywood at VanityFair.com. Yours, Julie Miller
Matthew McConaughey may be Hollywood’s reigning shirtless superstar , but long before he first bared his abs onscreen, Sylvester Stallone had mastered the art of gratuitous torso in each Rocky installment, Rambo film and a number of other action titles. Thirty-five years after his bare-chested breakout role as the Italian Stallion, Stallone returns to the screen this April for a feature called Bullet to the Head , which, again — amazingly — features the action icon topless as evidenced by a brand new still. (Don’t bother questioning how a shirtless 65-year-old man fits into the narrative — it just does, guys.) In honor of the actor’s impressive history of appearing semi-nude onscreen — even decades after audiences started shielding their eyes from his grisly old-man muscles — Movieline salutes Sylvester Stallone’s shirtless valor in the photo essay below. Rip off your top, drape yourself in the nearest American flag and enjoy the views below, then consider Movieline’s Shirtless Sylvester Stallone comprehension questions. Rocky (1976) Rocky II (1979) Rocky III (1982) First Blood (1982) Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985) Rocky IV (1985) Rambo III (1988) Tango & Cash (1989) Demolition Man (1993) The Specialist (1994) Rocky Balboa (2006) The Expendables (2010) Bullet to the Head (2012) Okay, class: Which is your favorite shirtless Sylvester Stallone look? Which is your least favorite shirtless Sylvester Stallone look? (Or: Which induced the most serious dry heaves?) At what point in his career should Sylvester Stallone have put a shirt on? Do you think it was a combination of good diet and exercise (slash steroids) that yielded such muscly results? Or just sheer Stalloneness? Follow Julie Miller on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
A bit of maintenance around Movieline HQ has resulted in some behind-the-scenes improvements — and a few design/technical quirks on the published site. Please know we’re on it! In the meantime, our commenting apparatus has been restored (though we’re still working on that as well), so feel free to resume your pithy, brilliant feedback as usual. More updates as events warrant… Thanks for your patience!
Screw Christmas. Forget Hanukkah. To hell with New Year’s. There is only one holiday we celebrate in the dank, windowless labs of Movieline’s Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, and that is Oscar Night. Thus the latest edition of Oscar Index, offering all the festive year-end joy you can possibly stand. Let’s get to it!
In spite of our hesitations about a 21 Jump Street film, Movieline thoroughly enjoyed last month’s red band trailer for the feature adaptation of the ’80s television series. It teased the quippy chemistry of stars Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum in a goofy buddy cop comedy similar in tone to Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller’s Starsky & Hutch reboot. But instead of infiltrating motorcycle gangs and Bat Mitzvahs, a new 21 Jump Street trailer proves that this ditzy male duo have a hard enough time uncovering a drug ring in between their afternoon chores and sad dance moves at prom.
The exhaustion levels are high and the confusion levels are even higher at Movieline’s Institute For the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, where the white-coated minions responsible for the Oscar Index have struggled to assay the state of the awards race through this week’s persistent turbulence. Read on for their results.
You’ve seen the locations . You’ve (hopefully) seen the movie . And now, New Yorkers, you are invited to live out at least parts of Michael Fassbender’s acclaimed Manhattan odyssey this weekend during Movieline’s Walk of Shame . It’s not just a notorious morning-after party ritual anymore!
Couldn’t make last night’s Los Angeles premiere of the latest sprawling, holiday-themed Garry Marshall rom-com New Year’s Eve ? (I’m talking to you, Robert De Niro and Sarah Jessica Parker.) No need to worry — Movieline has photos from the red carpet event so that you can catch up on all of the unexpected canoodling and Ludacris photo ops that you missed on Monday.
Paddy Considine’s British drama Tyrannosaur opens with an act of violence so brutal and bleak that, as Olivia Colman told Movieline earlier this month, it caused some audience members to bolt out of theaters. If they had stayed, though, they would have seen the film evolve from the portrait of an alcoholic widower’s despicably primal urges to the tale of his redemption.
