“Miss Jackson If Ya Nasty” takes the front and center position of this month’s issue of Prevention Magazine to let people in on what is going on in her world. Janet Jackson Covers Prevention Magazine Here is some of what she had to say. On being the spokeswoman for Nutrisystem: “I think people really connect with the idea of someone who’s gained and lost weight in a very public way, and also someone who’s an emotional eater.” On being an example to her niece Paris, Michael’s 14-year-old daughter who landed her first film role in Lundon’s Bridge and the Three Keys: “We’ve spoken about the fact that you’re only a child once. I think there’s a time for everything, and now is not the time [to act in films]. I told her I thought she should enjoy being a kid, possibly go to college—or not—but wait till she turns 18. She’s a very tough, smart girl. But it’s a cutthroat industry. I wouldn’t want my child to do it.” On the dichotomy of being 5’4, sweet and soft-spoken and her identity as a five-time Grammy Award-winning artist who’s sold more than 100 million records: “My songs are normally about what’s going on in my life at the moment. I don’t need to keep a diary.” Hit the flipper to see what Janet says about her weight issues, and whether or not her rich new boo-thang is a keeper for LIFE!
This is Thursday in Cannes: Zac Efron in tighty-whities, Nicole Kidman as a luscious sex kitten, Matthew McConaughey as a journalist with a sexual secret and a very creepy John Cusack. Such was just the tip of the iceberg this morning in Lee Daniels’s outrageous The Paperboy , which will have its world premiere tonight as the festival hits its final swing. Opinions seemed to range wildly in all directions following the film’s early morning screening: Applause and cries of “Bravo!” mixed with boos, laughter and a swift rush out of the huge Lumière Theatre to get reaction from Daniels and the cast at the press conference. The conversation in the press room took cues from the film’s flamboyant flare, and then it went from there. What many girls (and some boys) may have secretly wished to see back in the High School Musical days they can now get a big dose of it here: Efron is tan, trim and spends a good chunk of his scenes in his underwear, at one point dancing in the rain in his briefs with a very platinum and seductive Nicole Kidman. Never one to mince words, Lee Daniels set the record straight when asked about Zac Efron being “eroticized” in the new film: “He’s good looking, the camera can’t help but love him… And I’m a gay man – you know!” “I don’t think I was supposed to feel comfortable,” said Efron, laughing after Daniels’s quip. “This character is learning the ways of the world and it is uncomfortable. It was a great character to play.” Based on a novel by Pete Dexter, The Paperboy is set in late ’60s Florida. Efron plays Jack, a young guy who’s aimless and living with his dad and soon-to-be step mother. His older brother (McConaughey) is a journalist who comes to town to investigate a death-row inmate (John Cusack) he believes is wrongly convicted of murder. Meanwhile, Cusack is corresponding with a platinum blonde (Nicole Kidman) with a fabulous wardrobe, fake eye-lashes and pillowy lips. She’s also the object of Jack’s raging hormones — and things get complicated. “I felt like I was let out of some cage,” Cusack said Thursday morning in Cannes about his role. “Lee [Daniels] and I talked at the Chateau Marmont about a film I made called The Grifters and then he looked at me and said, ‘I think you have more to give than you’ve been giving lately,’ and that is just music to an actor’s ears.” In 2010’s Rabbit Hole , Nicole Kidman earned an Oscar nomination as an upper middle-class mother in mourning following the untimely death of her young son. Her Paperboy character Charlotte Bless could not present more of a contrast: Simulating sex in a prison visitation room, wearing flashy outfits and playing an untamed seductress, she at one point comes to Jack’s rescue after he’s attacked by a swarm of jellyfish. While he lays barely conscious on the sand as welts appear on his six-pack, she gives him the remedy required to treat a jellyfish sting. “I had to step into the character and put myself in a place where I didn’t step out of it,” Kidman said. She explained that she met Daniels at a party while she was promoting Rabbit Hole and became curious about how she might fit one day into one of his films. “I haven’t seen the movie yet and I’m nervous about seeing it, but that’s my job – to give over myself to someone and have them bring out in me what I can give.” “I had the most lovely time in the world playing with Nicole,” Efron followed. “I’ve been in love with her since Moulin Rouge . It was the best opportunity in the world.” The Paperboy is loaded with laughs especially for audiences who appreciate a bit of camp, but the film also takes a darker, more serious turn and Thursday’s post-screening followed the movie’s lead. Daniels, who received a Best Director Oscar nomination in 2011 for Precious , said that all the characters in The Paperboy are real for him personally, from the young kid to the woman who writes letters to prisoners to the house servant (played by Macy Gray). He also said he knows the prisoner. “I live in the truth. Every character here I know,” he said. “My brother — I raised his children. He has been in jail for murder. So I know this cat and when [Cusack] did anything that’s not true, I said, ‘You have to come at me in a different way.'” Continuing, Daniels said: “I say this to all filmmakers: You never take no for an answer. Making sure my vision is executed means never taking no, never.” “Lee has a hyper-sensitive mind, and as soon as you nail it he says, ‘Now, where can we take it?'” McConaughey said. Daniels offered up that McConaughey will be in his next film, The Butler , as John F. Kennedy. Cusack will play Richard Nixon. Starring Forest Whitaker as the White House butler who served multiple U.S. presidents, the cast also includes Kidman and Oprah Winfrey. Lee said that the new film will be decidedly more PG-13 than The Paperboy . Read more of Movieline’s Cannes 2012 coverage here . [Top image of (L-R) Zac Efron, John Cusack, Lee Daniels, Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman and Macy Gray: AFP/Getty Images]
The Intouchables hits so many audience-pleasing buttons, meticulously and dutifully, that it ought to be called The Irresistibles . This is the French movie you’ve been hearing about, a megahit in its native country and currently spreading across Europe like a cheerful, robust strain of flu. Based on a true story about a wheelchair-bound rich guy and his caretaker, a small-time crook from the projects, The Intouchables is a movie about life, love and the enduring power of Earth Wind & Fire. You have been forewarned. Actually, The Intouchables isn’t bad — its merely shameless, but at least it’s overtly so. The picture, written and directed by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache, stars François Cluzet as Philippe, the lonely wheelchair guy. Philippe is paralyzed from the neck down, the victim of a paragliding accident; he also lost his beloved wife years ago and is left with only a wiseacre teenage daughter who barely features in the story (she’s played, in a few fleeting, pouty scenes, by Alba Gaïa Kraghede Bellugi) and a houseful of servants, some of whom — like the super-efficient Yvonne (played by the earthbound and appealing Anne Le Ny) — seem to actually care for him. But Philippe also needs a strong, masculine caretaker, and when a strapping Senegalese fellow named Driss (Omar Sy) applies for the job, he’s hired almost against his own wishes. (He’d shown up for the interview at Philippe’s tony Paris mansionette only to get his papers signed, showing that he’d attempted to find work, in order to receive state benefits.) Philippe is an aesthete, a lover of fine art and classical music, and he has everything money can buy. But he needs a pal and a few laughs, as well as a companion who will treat him normally and not like a freak. When a concerned friend, suspicious of Driss and his motives, warns Philippe, “These street people have no pity,” Philippe responds firmly, “That’s what I want — no pity.” Driss, for his part, provides Philippe with more Live! Laugh! Love! moments than you or I could possibly count, despite the fact that he comes from a tough neighborhood and has some unresolved family troubles. And even though he steals a precious Fabergé egg — one with great sentimental value — from Philippe’s collection of same, the two form an indissoluble bond. Driss cheers Philippe up with his bad puns, he grins and/or dances infectiously whenever he hears “September” or “Boogie Wonderland,” and he helps Philippe court a new lady love. Philippe gradually loses his glum demeanor (Cluzet is really good at the glum stuff) and becomes guardedly cheerful, enjoying life for the first time in eons. Not much else happens in The Intouchables , though not much else needs to. The movie has the carefully calibrated inner workings of a watch movement: As it efficiently ticks away, it speaks to everything we want and need to believe about human frailty and the importance of connection. Toledano and Nakache keep the gears running smoothly — to their credit, they don’t throw in any moments of serious endangerment in order to up the drama quotient. (They were inspired to make the film after seeing a documentary about the real-life Philippe, Philippe Pozzo di Borgo, and his relationship with a man named Abdel, a young guy from the projects who came to work for him and changed his life around.) The friendship between Philippe and Driss, as the filmmakers present it, certainly is solid and life-changing, on both sides. I hesitate to use the term “magical Negro” because I think the term is too carelessly slapped onto any story in which white people learn something from people of color. Even in our racially mixed world — particularly here in the United States — the reality is that most white people live mostly around other white people, and sometimes it really does take an encounter with someone whose life, and whose skin color, is not like yours to shake things up. If you ask me, those encounters are less magical than they are necessary. That said, there is something a little magical about Driss, but that could be just because Sy is a charming, criminally likable presence. Sy has worked extensively in French movies and television, and he appeared in a previous feature made by Toledano and Nakache, the 2006 comedy Those Happy Days . (He also appeared in Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2009 whimsical windup toy Micmacs .) Sy makes The Intouchables worth watching, not because he adequately fulfills any perceived notion of the joyful person of color, but because he quite simply seems filled with joy. He earns bonus points for maintaining such boundless joie de vivre even as he spends so much time hanging around a French sourpuss like Cluzet’s Philippe. The Intouchables is not particularly complex, but it certainly hits its target. Whether or not you want that target hit is up to you. Meanwhile, Sy’s performance almost makes you forget how calculated the whole thing is. Plus, Driss is damn right about Earth Wind & Fire. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Jay-Z & Kanye West kicked off the European leg of their Watch The Throne Tour yesterday in London’s O2 Arena. Kanye’s famous lady friend, Kim Kardashian, also made the trip as well. Click Here To Watch Them Perform ‘N***as In Paris’ And See Photos
Our lil NBKOTB boo Kat Graham made an appearance in Vegas this weekend while Khlomar hit up the Race to Erase MS in Century City and Jada rocked this tangerine dress to her Cannes premiere of ‘Madagascar 3′. Who Looked More Bangin’? Antonique Smith, the banger who played Faith in “Notorious” was also at the charity event. Lots more photos from Friday below: WENN/SplashNews
We interview a lot of interesting people here on the Mr. Skin blog, but few of them can say their work is as important as Joe Rubin ‘s. Joe basically came out of the womb an exploitation fanatic and has been amassing an impressive private collection of vintage exploitation and erotic cinema since he was a teenager. Now he’s also launched a digital restoration company, Process Blue , that specializes in rescuing exploitation and X-rated films from obscurity and giving these long-neglected artifacts the respect that they deserve. Joe says that often when he contacts directors about restoring their films, they are shocked and touched to realize (often for the first time) that their work is remembered and appreciated as art. That’s something that Process Blue is trying to change. Process Blue is getting off to an auspicious start by participating in the excellent restorations of Radley Metzger’ s “Henry Paris” films in partnership with DistribPix and with the very, very exciting project they’re working on now: a Kickstarter campaign to restore three previously “lost” films by exploitation legend Herschell Gordon Lewis . We talked to Joe at his home base just around the corner from the Mr. Skin offices, where he told us about his massive collection, his work with Process Blue, and the unmatchable elegance of Kelly Nichols. More after the jump!
Mini-movie is inspired by the upcoming G.O.O.D. Music album of the same name. By Gil Kaufman Kanye West Photo: Getty Images Kanye West doesn’t know how to do small, so whenever the rapper unveils a new project it’s almost always on the biggest platform possible. That explains why his new “short art film,” “Cruel Summer,” will debut on the fabulous Palm Beach in Cannes, France during the Cannes Film Festival. The hush-hush movie, inspired by the upcoming all-star G.O.O.D. Music album of the same name, will world premiere on May 23 and remain open to the public for two days afterward. It is being screened out of competition in Cannes amid the world-famous film fest. And, this being Kanye, the project is described as, “a fusion of short film and art installation … an immersive ‘7 screen experience’ for the eyes and ears unlike anything West has attempted before.” Among those listed as starring in the film are comedian Aziz Ansari, Kid Cudi, Lebanese actress Razane Jammal (“Djinn”) and Palestinian actor Ali Suliman (“The Kingdom”). Yeezy is listed as the producer, writer and director of the effort, based on a screenplay by Elon Rutberg, who was the associate director of the Throne’s “N—-s in Paris” video. The co-director is Alexandre Moors, who worked with West on “Runaway” as well as the “Paris” clip. Kanye and Cudi were spotted filming scenes for the movie earlier this year in the middle eastern nation of Qatar, but little or no information has emerged about the subject matter or plot of the project. Expectations are high given the over-the-top look and feel of ‘Ye’s last mini-flick, 2010’s “Runaway.” Click here for ticket information for the screenings. Related Photos 2012 Cannes Film Festival Related Artists Kanye West
One of the funniest moments during a “meet the jury session” Wednesday afternoon in Cannes came toward the end of a press conference. The annual first-day Q&A has long been a peculiar dance, with jurors giving vague answers about being happy to be on the jury and how they’ll pursue the next 11 days viewing all of the competition entries with an open mind. And this year was pretty much no exception: Joined by fellow jurors Ewan McGregor, Diane Kruger, Jean Paul Gaultier, Raoul Peck, Andrea Arnold, Hiam Abbass and Emmanuelle Devos, jury president Nanni Moretti — whose own film Habemus Papam ( We Have a Pope ) screened in competition here last year — recalled a wall of silence surrounding the jury when he last served many years back. “When I was here 15 years ago, we weren’t allowed to speak out,” Moretti said, comparing how times have changed for the Cannes Film Festival. “Now we have this press conference and another one after [the winners are chosen].” He likened the former wall of silence to a Vatican conclave, the secret meeting of the Catholic Church’s cardinals who select a pope, a drama that figured so prominently in his film that debuted here one year ago. “Speaking to the press used to be taboo,” he said. “But now only conclaves must be silent.” But the fact of the matter is they do speak, both today and after the awards are announced (but supposedly not in between). This year, the dearth of female directors in the official competition has again caused controversy . Last year, four women directors screened in competition (there were none in 2010 ), but this year’s lineup is again dominated by the males. “I’d absolutely hate if one of my films got selected to be in Cannes only because I’m a woman,” Arnold said when asked about the lack of female representation among the films she’ll judge this year. “I’d only want it selected if it were worthy to be here. But I also think Cannes is a pocket of the world and the fact of the matter is, there are a lack of female directors out there.” Arnold won two jury prizes in Cannes for Red Road (2006) and Fish Tank (2009). Beyond controversy, there is the ever present discussion of the Oscars, something that typically figures in with Toronto in the early fall. But last year, Cannes debuted three Academy Award nominees for Best Picture — Midnight in Paris , The Tree of Life and the eventual Oscar-winner The Artist . Will next year’s Oscar race be influenced again by what happens in Cannes — two events separated by nine months? “I think it’s a completely different ballgame between the Oscars and Cannes,” McGregor noted, perhaps dodging the question a bit. “But this is a great springboard for new filmmakers to be noticed.” “On the one hand it’s ridiculous to say one film is better than another,” said juror Alexander Payne about picking winners, himself an Oscar winner this year for The Descendants . “The selection of the entire slate of films brings more attention than the actual prizes.” Read all of Movieline’s Cannes 2012 coverage here .
Gisele Bündchen Covers Vogue Paris Here is Brazilian model, Gisele Bündchen , on the cover of Vogue Paris wearing nothing but bikini bottoms on her sand-covered derriere. You likey???
Gisele Bündchen Covers Vogue Paris Here is Brazilian model, Gisele Bündchen , on the cover of Vogue Paris wearing nothing but bikini bottoms on her sand-covered derriere. You likey???
