Amber Tamblyn ( Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants , The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret ) always seemed like a girl with moxie, and I’d guess you don’t fall in with a guy like David Cross without one wicked sense of humor, but even so the depths of awesome that she went to in pranking Tyrese Gibson deserve applause. And boy, what a prank: After receiving an e-mail from the Transformers / Fast 5 star proposing a future collaboration after he mistook her for model Amber Rose on a mutual friend’s email message, Tamblyn had some fun with the musician-actor with a series of original “Awareness Raps.” An excerpt of the exchange, as detailed at the blog Street Boners and TV Carnage : On Feb 26, 2012, at 10:16 AM, Amber Rose T wrote: lol u are so sweet boo I’ve been trying to get this album goin for so long u know how it is. Attached is the single demo I’ve been workin on… not finished yet but soon! Thanks to u boo lol. I will send you more demos soon. You will have demos comin out ur demos!! lol A On Sun, Feb 26, 2012 at 10:55 AM, Tyrese Gibson wrote: We can make it real …. I’m sitting on a lot of magic … Let me know when ur in LA .. We can play until we customize AR Respectfully, Tyrese Gibson Head to Street Boners and TV Carnage for the full — and increasingly hilarious thread (sorry, Tyrese!) — with yet more of Tamblyn’s original R&B jamz. Eventually Tyrese caught on to the sham and cut off the exchange; Tamblyn gave the following update on her official blog in a post entitled The Tyrese Sessions : I emailed Tyrese one last time yesterday (as myself of course) after he wrote me saying “you took this shit public?! Not cool… not even remotely…” I reiterated that yes I took advantage of a man that took adntage of another man’s cc list… but it’s all good- we should do a song together and laugh at the whole thing. He said my music was “corny as fuck” and no. Now I am 86% sorry, Tyrese. Raise your Maker’s Mark in the air for Amber (Rose) Tamblyn, everyone. Get we get a slow clap going by everyone on the Internet? [ Street Boners and TV Carnage via @QuestLove , @JohnAugust ] Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Their five-time Oscar winner The Artist may have just experienced its most lucrative weekend at the box office to date, but newly installed Legionnaire of Honor Harvey Weinstein and his Weinstein Co. minions remain firmly focused today on the Great Bully Ratings Non-troversy of 2012 . How do we know? To Twitter, where #BullyMovie is this morning’s highest-ranking (promoted, ahem) trending topic. Here’s the official shout-out from the Bully gang, carrying over last week’s ” human rights ” crusade to get the Weinstein release’s R-rating reduced to a PG-13. Wildfire petition to tell the @ MPAA to give @ bullymovie a PG-13 breaks 180,000 RT to keep the fire! bit.ly/AbQWZ1 #bullymovie — Bully Movie(@bullymovie) March 2, 2012 So how’s the response? Mostly positive, naturally, with a few contrarian opinions and hilarious misunderstandings thrown in for good measure: #BullyMovie needs to be PG13. #MiddleFingerUp to the bullies at the MPAA who rated this important film R. — Extrovert (@RamiTime) March 5, 2012 I’m curious about #BullyMovie . Does it only look at the victims?Because the bullies themselves are almost always victims of bullies as well. — Scott S Kramer (@scottskramer) March 5, 2012 If @ WeinsteinFilms cannot change the R rating to #BullyMovie then no one can. Seriously, they made “The Artist” won best picture. — Natalia Cariaga (@natajunk) March 5, 2012 Sorry guys, but this #BullyMovie isn’t going to stop bullying any more than “Roots” and “The Color Purple” stopped racism. — FTKL Images (@FTKL) March 5, 2012 #BullyMovie Mean Girls — Erica Mabrey (@adagewhentola67) March 5, 2012 #BullyMovie Precious! — Aidan DeVaughn (@adm1022) March 5, 2012 kind of a #BullyMovie The Little Rascals its the best, back in the day ! — Julian Bolton (@SupermanJr35) March 5, 2012 Harry Potter and the chamber of First Years. #bullymovie — All was well (@iManageMischief) March 5, 2012 Harvey’s secret weapon? What else? @ KhloeKardashian calls @ BULLYMOVIE trailer “heartbreaking” – WATCH THE #BULLYMOVIE TRAILER: bit.ly/znJ8C0 — Bully Movie(@bullymovie) March 5, 2012 What a grotesque fucking circus. Knowledge is power! Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Sony’s got quite the job ahead of them selling the mega-budgeted sequel Men in Black III , due in May, if the new trailer is any indication: See Will Smith drop lines like “I don’t have no problem pimp-slapping the shiznit outta Andy Warhol” and be transported to a futuristic time-traveling retro ’60s that looks and sounds a lot like the one Austin Powers came from. I guess the ’90s are the new ’80s, but this is just lazy. The new sequel follows alien-hunting Agent J (Smith) into the past to save Agent K ( Tommy Lee Jones ) by teaming up with a younger version of K ( Josh Brolin doing his best Tommy Lee Jones impression). Look forward to the usual broad aliens-among-us gags and that mind eraser schtick that audiences loved in 1997! Smith bemoans that he’s “getting too old for this,” and I’m inclined to agree. Aren’t we all? Verdict: Looks tired. Insert mind eraser joke here.
What do you get when you fold two decades’ worth of young stars — and one very confused-looking Tom Sizemore — into a cautionary tale about the perils of meth use? Try Meth Head , a swear-y, scream-y, violent and thoroughly destabilizing journey to the depths of the worst known addiction this side of Words With Friends. Your venerable guides: Lukas Haas, Wilson Cruz, Scott Patterson and a laconic Sizemore among others. It’s the feel-bad movie of 2012, coming soon to a festival near you! To wit, from a press release: Kyle Peoples never wanted to be the man he has become in his 30s, an accountant stuck in a dead end job, with a lover who is more successful than he and a family that doesn’t get him at all. So when a night of partying leads to a new family of friends and fun, Kyle sees an opportunity for escape from reality. But Kyle’s new friendship with Maia and Dusty and the trio’s love of crystal meth eventually cost Kyle his job, his companion, his home and his family. Kyle’s escape becomes his trap, the party is an illusion and the crystal is slowly killing him, physically and psychologically. When he finally bottoms out and is no longer the young man his father once boasted about with pride, Kyle must choose: life or meth. Yikes. This thing has me wanting to go to rehab. Festival premieres are forthcoming, according to the release; stay tuned to Movieline for more details as events warrant. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
With only three weeks to go until YA adaptation The Hunger Games hits theaters, Lionsgate has released the first actual clip from the Gary Ross-directed film, and it’s a memorable moment Hunger Games fans should recognize: Forced to show off her skills for the Capitol’s boorish, drunken Gamemakers — the designers of the Games, headed by Wes Bentley ‘s Seneca Crane — Katniss ( Jennifer Lawrence ) lets an arrow fly in an act of defiance that finally gets their attention. It’s a smart scene choice to unveil, as the barrage of trailers and TV spots released so far have offered only snippets from the film; this clip, meanwhile, gives more of a sense of Ross’s sense for tone and pacing within scenes, not to mention how he might treat iconic moments from the book. Katniss’s arrow flying at the pack of vulgar Gamemakers, in whose hands the fates of the Games’ tributes lie, is one of one her first impulsive displays of rebellion against the Games and the government that created them — the perfect way to get fans’ attentions, too. This scene also demonstrates Ross’s stylistic approach, sound design, and visual interpretation of Suzanne Collins’ Panem, and while I expected to see a little more outrage on Lawrence’s face at the :30 second mark, it works for me. What say you, Movieliners? The Hunger Games is in theaters March 23.
If the teenage hedonists of Project X want to see what’s in store for them in 40 years — and surely they don’t — they might have a look at Italian writer-director-actor Gianni Di Gregorio’s smart and none-too-sweet little comedy The Salt of Life , in which a 60-ish retiree living in Trastevere suddenly realizes that not a single woman — not his reasonably affectionate but matter-of-fact wife, nor his flirty young next door neighbor, nor any of his various old flames and acquaintances – is interested in sleeping with him. It’s also, to my knowledge, the only movie about the love lives of sexagenarians that closes with the Pixies’ “Here Comes Your Man.” This is a movie that’ll play great with the blue-haired crowd, and yet I suspect touches like that will go over the heads of the oldsters. The overarching, bittersweet vibe of The Salt of Life is that you just never, ever get over it — whatever the hell it is. The Salt of Life is the follow-up to Di Gregorio’s surprise 2010 mini-hit Mid-August Lunch , in which some version of the character we meet here — a guy in late-middle age named Gianni, played by Di Gregorio himself — is forced into service cooking and otherwise waiting on his passive-aggressively demanding 90-something mother (played, with grand dame comic authority, by Valeria de Franciscis) and her equally wrinkly, chattery gal pals. Mid-August Lunch was Di Gregorio’s directorial debut. (He also wrote the screenplay for the 2008 drama Gomorrah .) And if it was the sort of movie to which you could take your mother — as well as your grandmother and your great-grandmother — it was also evidence that even safe, “nice” little movies, done right, can have a bit of the serpent’s bite in them. Di Gregorio has a light touch, but he never goes for the saccharine. Even when he stoops to making a Viagra joke — as he does in The Salt of Life — he can’t resist tipping it on its ear. And he refuses to overplay the moment — he ricochets off in another direction before you even know it. In The Salt of Life , Gianni — once again played by Di Gregorio, who has the air of a lovelorn basset hound — can’t help noticing that all his salt-and-pepper-haired buddies seem to be dallying with beautiful younger women. Almost half-heartedly, he decides he might have a go at it himself: His wife (Elisabetta Piccolomini), who seems to want him around only to make Ikea runs, probably wouldn’t care. And his daughter (played by Di Gregorio’s daughter, Teresa) has her own love life to worry about; her ex-boyfriend (Michelangelo Ciminale) is still hanging around the family apartment, and, seemingly out of a lack of anything better to do, becomes Gianni’s pal and partner in crime. In between fielding calls from his mother (de Franciscis, once again), who summons him to her home for important tasks like slapping the TV in order to get better reception, Gianni makes attempts with various younger cuties (nearly all of them, by the way, voluptuous in a way that you rarely see in American movies). He begins with his mother’s caretaker, Kristina (Kristina Cepraga), a captivating blonde goddess who eagerly tells him about a dream in which he played a significant role — as her grandfather. Then he moves on to an old acquaintance, Gabriella (played by mezzosoprano Gabriella Sborgi), who professes interest in him only to ignore him when he shows up, flowers in tow, at her house while she’s busy rehearsing. Old-flame Valeria (Valeria Cavalli) is thrilled to see him, but falls asleep on the couch before their date can ignite. And that vivacious next-door-neighbor, Aylin (Aylin Prandi), adores him but not quite in that way — she’s deeply appreciative of the way he’s always stopping by to walk her Saint Bernard, Riccardo. Di Gregorio (who also wrote the script) has set up a stock scenario for sure. But it’s what he does with it, and the way he tosses in casual but significant grace notes, that makes all the difference. Di Gregorio — who seems to be carrying the full weight of unrequited sexual desire in the cartoonishly heavy bags under his eyes — specializes in self-deprecation, especially when it comes to machismo. (And this is Italian machismo we’re talking about — not for the faint of heart.) When Gianni dons a new suit and struts past his buddies — they sit outside in their tracksuits, talking about football and women, possibly in that order — one of them remarks, “He must have a date!” only to have another retort, “He’s probably going to a christening.” He does, in fact, have a date, but the suit doesn’t help him much. Gianni’s inability to get anything started isn’t just a running gag — it’s the picture’s backbone, although Di Gregorio keeps the action and the jokes lissome and fluid, rather than locking them into a rigid formula. As actor, director and writer, he approaches the idea of ever-present longing with the suppleness of a dancer. On the surface, The Salt of Life may seem like a movie made just for old folks. The trick is that it really is about the youth that stays with you, even when your aging body is working hard to convince you otherwise. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
“She knows that I know that she knows that I know the whole scene is deliberate, right down to the supporting players — assistants, various friends, family — arranged here and there around the pool, ready to do a star’s bidding… That Lopez has dared to try and pull off such a time-honored Hollywood gambit as Rising-Star-Interviewed-By-The-Pool is in keeping with her overall strategy of playing Big. Big is Jennifer Lopez ‘s forte.” The jury may be out on Lopez’s maybe-wardrobe malfunction onstage at the Oscars, but you can treat yourself with Stephen Rebello’s full 1998 Movieline must-read , stat.
Congratulations to Dan Lindsay and TJ Martin, whose film Undefeated lived up to its title at last night’s Academy Awards by taking home the Best Documentary Feature Oscar. Exploring the intersection of class, race and a hard-luck high-school football team, the doc started earning fans over a year ago at Sundance — including Harvey Weinstein, who acquired Undefeated on the spot and promptly fast-tracked it for 2012 awards glory. Mission accomplished. The only thing Undefeated didn’t do? How about help get three unjustly convicted men — one condemned to die — out of prison? Which brings us to Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory , the final installment of Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky’s nearly 20-year investigation into the grisly murders of three boys in West Memphis, Ark., and the subsequent trials and convictions of three teenagers in the case. Since the first film debuted in 1996 ( Paradise Lost 2: Revelations appeared in 2000), the series’s illumination of police and judicial misconduct — to say nothing of misplaced allegations of Satanism and other perceived motives — became instrumental in the crusade to free Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin. The “West Memphis 3” quickly developed into a cause célèbre among observers from the cultural to legal realms; Metallica contributed music to the films, further boosting their profiles, while defense lawyers and DNA experts raced to find evidence persuasive enough to save Echols from the death chamber and, hopefully, release all three men from behind bars. Of course, as a regular consumer of media, you likely already know these details. Unless, that is, you’re a member of the Academy’s clinically insane Documentary Branch. In which case you should be ashamed of yourself. Not to take anything away from Undefeated , but… Well, actually, yeah. I would like to take something away from Undefeated : Its Best Documentary Oscar. Not necessarily because of any technical inferiority — it’s a fine, inspiring, well-made film — but merely on the qualitative basis of not having saved a man’s life or helped liberate the West Memphis 3 through thousands upon thousands of hours of research, interviews, editing and, ultimately, pure storytelling. On the one hand, sure: As Berlinger told Movieline a few weeks ago in our Documentary Nominee roundtable , “[T]here can be no bigger prize than having helped get three innocent men get released from prison after 18 plus years of wrongful imprisonment.” On the other hand, fuck that . Let’s just be honest: If we’re going to reward films like last night’s Documentary Short winner Saving Face or recent Doc Feature triumphs like An Inconvenient Truth , The Cove and Inside Job for their honorable activist intent, then what more does Paradise Lost 3 have to do to win over Academy voters? If Berlinger and Sinofsky had freed three dolphins from certain death in Japan, would that have tilted the Oscar scales in their favor? Or maybe filmed a boring-ass slideshow detailing their findings in the case? Al Gore couldn’t even stop global warming. These guys exposed one of America’s most protracted miscarriages of justice (made all the worse by the fact that prosecutors refuse to reopen the case, thus leaving the murder mystery unsolved) not once, not twice, but three times, establishing the narrative foundation on which the whole campaign to free the West Memphis 3 was built. So what gives? Was this the last indignity to be committed by the Documentary Branch under its previous set of rules — a garish sloughing off of a film funded and broadcast by HBO as opposed to one following the classic theatrical pattern that Academy leadership so cherishes? What a truly fine barometer of quality, except that Undefeated had the same one-week qualifying run that PL3 had, only opening in theaters a week-and-a-half ago. Weinstein and HBO took advantage of the same loophole. Could it have just been the Weinstein factor alone — Harvey being Harvey, pushing his nonfiction wares in his Artist / Iron Lady downtime? Or, as a friend suggested to me this morning in the clearing Oscar smoke, is this just the Doc Branch holding out for the Peter Jackson-produced West of Memphis , a recent Sundance premiere due in theaters at some point in 2012? Jackson is the only figure in this schema with as much (if not more) Academy clout as Weinstein, and it’s entirely conceivable that whatever momentum gathered in Undefeated ‘s favor — or, perhaps more accurately, in any direction away from PL3 — began with a quiet, sturdy nudge from New Zealand. It’s impossible to say or ever know for sure — unless Weinstein acquires the currently distributor-less West of Memphis , I suppose, in which case even one of those dolphins from The Cove could do the math and know the fix is in. In any case, the whole thing amounts to another black eye for the Academy’s Doc branch, a body ostensibly charged with the responsibility of recognizing each year’s best achievement in documentary filmmaking but which has so lost the plot regarding the form’s boldest, most influential works that it has sunk irretrievably beneath contempt. Like, I get why Banksy’s intoxicating, masterful Exit Through the Gift Shop last year couldn’t surmount the dry, staid recession expose Inside Job ; the branch has always sought to persuade everybody to believe that it is preoccupied with Issues, even as it routinely, criminally snubs the likes of Steve James ( Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters ) from even being nominated. But that inconsistency aside, here was a chance for the Academy to recognize filmmaking that made as much of a social impact as any Best Documentary Feature winner since perhaps Common Threads: Stories From the Quilt (another documentary originated by HBO, incidentally) claimed the prize 22 years ago. Moreover, it was a crucial opportunity for the Academy to help further mobilize the case for fully exonerating the West Memphis 3, whose release was conditional on an Alford plea that upheld their guilty verdict while leaving them on the equivalent of 10 years’ probation. The governor of Arkansas won’t pardon them without an alternative conviction, which prosecutors refuse to seek pretty much out of spite. So the saga continues, but whatever. As long as Harvey’s happy, right? I can’t overstate how frustrated this makes me. If nothing else, the Paradise Lost films taught us how to know a spot a sham when we see one — to stick to the facts and to your values and keep your eyes on the prize. But with the Oscars at this point, who even wants this particular prize? When one of the only Academy Awards categories with any legitimate sociocultural import is turned into the same old irrelevant boy’s club where we find shit like Real Steel nominated, what values are we adhering to? For Christ’s sake, people: The Transformers trilogy has more Oscars than the Paradise Lost trilogy. This is not acceptable. Something must change. I’d hate to think that it begins with me giving up, but that’s probably where it’s headed. In any case, I’m open to suggestions. Follow S.T. VanAirsdale on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Hollywood’s biggest (and possibly most anticlimactic) night is upon us, which can only mean one thing: Movieline’s third annual Oscar Liveblog Extravaganza! Join your Movieline editors and loyal readers as we parse the Academy Awards to within an inch of their glamorous lives. The fun begins on the red carpet at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT, with the Oscarcast proper commencing at 8:30 p.m ET/5:30 p.m. PT. And in any case, keep abreast of this year’s Oscar class with our commentary after the jump. [ADVISORY 8 p.m. ET: The CoverItLive/Twitter interface is buggy for the time being; we’re working on a solution! Thanks for your patience!] [ADVISORY 8:20 p.m. ET: Many apologies to readers who had been checking out the livetweet module; technical difficulties on the Twitter interface made it impossible to continue. Please chime in with us in the comments!] 11:38 Well, thanks for playing along, and sorry for the technical difficulties. But enough about Harvey Weinstein’s high-five abilities! That is all. More Monday on Movieline. Go drinking! What are you still doing here? 11:35 And Tom Cruise announces The Artist as Best Picture winner. And give Uggie the Oscar! 11:33 Some really great plastic surgery in the last 3 minutes. 11:30 Meryl Streep wins Best Actress! Great? 11:26 “Rooney, you have no experience. Congrats, get the fuck out of here.” 11:24 Best Actress! Colin Firth is so eloquent. “Glenn! You are so Nobbsie. Hallo, Nobbsie! Well done, Glenn. You did Nobbsie. Nobbsie!” 11:20 VIOLIN LADY! 11:18 Congrats to Jean Dujardin! You’ll never work in this town again. 11:14 I have nothing left. Demian, George, Jean… what a way to introduce yourself to PUUUUUKE 11:08 Thank you to the Academy for elevating George Kuchar to roughly 10 dead-industry-people places below Elizabeth Taylor. 11:03 I DIED 10:58: VIOLIN LADY! 10:52 Best Director: Michel Hazanavicius. Obviously. 10:48 Oscar date: “Where is our dead people montage? Where is our dead people montage? ” Yeah, kinda. 10:45 Yayyyyy, photo-bombers Brandon Oldenburg and William Joyce take Best Animated Short. Congrats. Cocktail/smoke/heroin/sleep break… BRB. 10:42 Short winners: The Shore (dramatic) and Saving Face (documentary). Y’all are totally fucking up my Oscar pool. 10:39 Kristin Wiig, film size queen. May I suggest Margaret ? 10:33 Adam Sandler wants to get to the truth. By the time he’s 85. He might get there. 10:30 Woody Allen wins Best Original Screenplay. Let’s get to what affects Reese Witherspoon about Overboard . 10:26 Best Adapted Screenplay: Alexander Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash win it for The Descendants . Payne, insufferably, to his mother: “If I ever won another Oscar, I had to dedicate it to you.” Well, then. 10:18 Should I be saying something about these suits? The cymbals? Or that 1/2 of Flight of the Conchords just won an Oscar? Yes, that. 10:13 Ludovic Bource! Way to rape the Oscars ! 10:10 Uggie was on the Oscars. We did it . 10:04 VIOLIN LADY! 10:01 For Beginners , Christopher Plummer becomes the oldest actor ever to win an Oscar. Take it away, kid. 9:58 Melissa Leo, who are you wearing? “Penney’s” Oh. 9:56 Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich in the same Oscarcast? What did we do to deserve this? Oh, by the way, Hugo just won Best Visual Effects. 9:54 Emma Stone single-handedly saved at least the last half-hour of the Oscars. Thanks you, Emma! 9:47 Gore Verbinski is an Academy Award-winner. That is all. 9:45 Check out Movieline’s Best Documentary Feature roundtable here . 9:42 Robert Downey and Gwyneth Paltrow “introduce” Best Documentary Feature: Undefeated . Um, wow . Shocking upset over Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory . 9:40 The Oscars just jumped the circus elephant. 9:37 Thank you Miss Piggy and Kermit! Here’s my take on “What it Means to Go to the Bathroom.” 9:29 If the idea is that you power through the bullshit and montages and give the winners time to speak, then I am allllll for that. Oh, wait — Cirque Du Soleil coming up next. Never mind! 9:26 Hugo wins Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. My drinking games can’t keep up with this pace! Slow down, Tina Fey ! 9:24 Yay! Kirk Baxter and Angus Wall win Best Editing for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and have nothing to say. Nicely done, gentlemen. 9:22 The cults of the Oscars and Christopher Guest just died before my eyes. 9:17 Via @jenyamato at @movieline : “Is it too much to hope that one day the Oscars will get Keyboard Cat to play off the long-winded acceptance speeches?” AMEN, SISTER. 9:15 VIOLIN LADY! 9:14 Octavia Spencer wins Best Supporting Actress! Roll Tide! 9:10 Incidentally, what does Otis the Oscar Cat think this year’s awards so far? Ahem . 9:07 A Separation wins Best Foreign-Language Feature! Way to go, Iran! Imagine what you’ll do with nuclear weapons! 9:06 Loving Sandra Bullock right now. I needed Chinese by way of German, seriously. 9:01 Lovely film-fan montage. “I remember saying, ‘Can I please do that?'” No, Adam Sandler, you cannot. 9:00 OK, so the theme is to go to the movies. 8:58 “Ldkjhafdslkjfhakljdhfsalkjhdadjk!!!” Couldn’t have said it any better, Cameron and J-Lo! Oh, and The Iron Lady won Best Make-Up. 8:57 Another minute passed! This calls for the next shot. 8:56 Mark Bridges and The Artist win Best Costume Design. And first Harvey Weinstein mention! This calls for a shot. 8:54 Roland Emmerich was on the Oscars. Now I can die. #ConsiderEmmerich 8:52 We were off to such a nice, fast start! And now… this clip reel? “That’s when movies were actually made on film.” YOUR BEST CINEMATOGRAPHER SHOT DIGITAL, ASSHOLE. 8:46 Nice to see Donatella Versace make Italy 2-for 2. Is it a Hugo night? 8:44 Robert Richardson! Huge upset! I think? I’m drunk. Second 3-D winner in three years, though — not bad. Check out his Movieline chatwith Jeff Cronenweth here . 8:43 Big night for you, Carl! 8:41 Did I miss the Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close part of that song? Or was just the part where Crystal bombed? 8:39 Marty Scorsese’s daughter knows how pathetically weak this is. So much for the younger demographic! 8:37 How did we ever overlook the ” Chapter 11 Theater “? 8:35 I have no idea what is going on with this intro. Bourbon, please. 8:25 I feel like I’ve lived and/or worked a lifetime in the last 90 minutes. Only six hours to go!
You know this movie, and chances are that you loved this movie — except for that one role that almost ruined it all. Miscast Roles is where Movieline and its readers swap out those roles to make it right. One of last year’s surprise critical and commercial darlings, Rise of the Planet of the Apes , wowed audiences, stoked many an awards-season debate and revitalized an important science fiction franchise — all while still managing to appeal to moviegoers unfamiliar with the original 1968 film (or that film’s 1963 source novel). As chief chimp Caesar, Andy Serkis’s performative collaboration with the motion capture geniuses from WETA was a great spectacle, presenting viewers with a gorgeously rendered CGI-animated character. Yet one consistent flaw in Rise left me scratching my head: James Franco’s weirdly aloof performance as scientist Will Rodman. The film presents Rodman as an Alzheimer’s disease researcher who claims to have found a cure that necessitates extensive animal testing and, subsequently, brings about a race of intelligent, self-aware chimpanzees, as well as the titular “rise” of the primate-centered culture in which the rest of the series is based. Imagining Franco as a brilliant researcher even in the best of performances would be, let’s face it, a bit of stretch. But add the fact that this character is motivated by a desire to cure his own father of the debilitating effects of the disease in question — not to mention Rodman’s somewhat unhealthy attachment to the first subject of his animal tests — and you’ve got a complex emotional palette that seemed to flat-out confuse Franco. A much better choice for this role would have been the expressive Mark Ruffalo, an actor capable of communicating exactly what was needed of the Rodman character in this story. This is not to say that Franco is a bad actor, far from it. His talents are just misplaced here: Franco is best at lengthening the emotional distance between character and audience, arresting viewers’ attention through enigma and idiosyncrasy, rather than connecting through direct emotional appeal. He rarely lets the viewer into his head space, and this role really needed someone with whom the audience could immediately connect. Ruffalo, meanwhile, has acted powerfully in two films in particular — You Can Count on Me and Shutter Island — that required exactly the two traits most vital to the Rodman character: a palpable sense of sympathy and an ability to play a straight-man to a more eye-catching lead. Rodman’s psychology, hovering between helplessness and an ambitious determination to set things right, was meant to parallel the emotional instability of his primate pal Caesar, as the latter scales from animal behavior up the rungs of human cognitive development. Franco consistently hit the wrong notes in his interaction with Serkis’s Caesar, and often left John Lithgow, who played the dementia-stricken father, adrift in scenery chewing overtures. The scenes between father and son didn’t work like they could’ve, and the potential to cast the conflicting motivations vying for Rodman’s attention in terms of Caesar’s own dual nature went unrealized. In Ruffalo’s breakthrough role in You Can Count On Me , he showed huge emotional range as the wayward brother to Laura Linney’s maternally protective big sister character. You Can Count On Me highlights a young man’s floundering crisis of identity, as played out within a family drama. [Clip NSFW] The film is one long assurance by Ruffalo’s character that, wherever he might wander in the greater world, the bonds of family holding him and his sister together still remain. Sound familiar? Rise of the Planet of the Apes features a strikingly similar theme, though its identity crisis and negotiation of familial loyalty covers an inter-species bond. In You Can Count On Me , Ruffalo plays the “Caesar role” to Linney’s big sister; he is the one breaking out into new territory of self-determination, while it’s Linney who plays the concerned, yet ultimately quiescent guardian. But Ruffalo reverses that relationship in his mentorship of Linney’s young son, played by Kieran Culkin, and there he shows some very strong Rodman-type characteristics. Meanwhile, Ruffalo’s pensive second fiddle to Leonardo DiCaprio’s go-for-broke investigator in Shutter Island also fulfills the required qualifications for stepping into the Rodman part. Ruffalo stays in the background of the drama for most of Shutter Island , allowing DiCaprio to serve as a fixed center to the film’s horrifically shifting sense of reality. The fact that the audience isn’t supposed to be looking too closely at Ruffalo ends up being important, given plot developments. Yet when all is revealed, and Ruffalo is finally able to communicate what his watchful, subdued presence in the film actually entails, he shines. Watch Ruffalo’s eyes in the final scene of Shutter Island in the clip below, and imagine how applying that level of character layering to Will Rodman in Rise of the Planet of the Apes would have benefited the whole production. Nathan Pensky is an associate editor at PopMatters and a contributor at Forbes , among various other outlets. He can be found on Tumblr and Twitter as well.
