‘We’re trying to push ourselves and continue to grow and get better,’ Kevin Jonas says, telling MTV News to ‘check back in.’ By Jocelyn Vena Jonas Brothers Photo: MTV News
‘I wrote a song about my own experiences,’ says frontman Mike Angelakos, telling MTV News he hadn’t actually seen the ‘Twilight’ film before he composed. By Rya Backer Passion Pit’s Nate Donmoyer and Michael Angelakos Photo: MTV News
We’ve been providing you with breaking nudes on Piper Perabo’s return to nudity in Looper (in theaters September 28) and the nubile nude co-eds of Spring Breakers (release date TBA), but our Skin Skout has been knee-deep in hot starlets at the Toronto International Film Festival all weekend. Well, ok, that’s half true. Our Skin Skout IS at TIFF, but the closest he’s gonna get to the likes of Noomi Rapace , Marion Cotillard , Olga Kurylenko , Rachel McAdams and Naomi Watts is his seat at the premieres of their new movies. But he’s still getting an eyeful… Get the scoop on upcoming nudes from Passion, Cloud Atlas, Rust and Bone and more from TIFF after the jump!
Band play first show since lead singer Michael Angelakos took several weeks off to work on mental health. By Gil Kaufman Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos Photo: Gil Kaufman/ MTV News
Rocsi Diaz Speaks On Leaving 106 & Park And Being Misunderstood 106 & Park soon-to-get-the-boot co-host Rocsi Diaz wants us to know that there’s more to her than meets the eye. Rocsi recently say her Hollyweird hoppin’ ho-cakes down with YRB magazine to talk passion, plans for the future and why the next host should stay in her lane. The Misconception Of Who I Am: “I’m not what people think I am. People see a persona on television and they tend to think that is how people really are, when in actuality, we are all just human beings. I’m a very spiritual, humble and down-to-earth person. There is so much more to me than what meets the eye.” Where My Passion Lies Now: “My passion lies in bettering and empowering our youth. Through my charity, The RocStar Foundation, mentoring and speaking engagements and through how I live my everyday life, I try to be a role model – not only for young girls – but for the youth as a whole. I want them to know they can achieve anything they set forth in their mind. You always need that cheerleader in your life.” What 106 & Park Has Meant To Me: “It completely changed my life. This show set the foundation of a very prosperous career for me, and it showed me the reality of dreams coming true. I would have never seen myself on a flagship show on a major network for so long, and Terrence J and I have been able to outlast other television hosts in our demographic who didn’t last as long. You have to give us some type of credit for that.” Life After 106 & Park: “I see myself continuing to host and be a part of the entertainment world. It is something I have grown to love, and I truly enjoy it. I have also ventured into the realm of acting, as well as writing and producing movies. I’m currently filming, as well as shopping around the very first film that I produced, and I’m really excited about it.” Advice For The Next Rocsi: “Always follow your passion. Look at the people that came before you. Study the greats and practice, but most importantly, try to set your lane. Don’t settle for trying to be the next me, but instead become the best you.” No mention of her secret smash-no-go boo thang Eddie Murphy …maybe she’s still in denial mode. Source
The Film : Being John Malkovich (1999), available today on Blu-ray and DVD via The Criterion Collection Why It’s an Inessential Essential : It’s strange to think that a film with John Malkovich’s name in its title isn’t really considered to be “a John Malkovich movie.” Instead, Being John Malkovich is understandably normally associated with screenwriter Charlie Kaufman and director Spike Jonze, both of whom really broke out thanks to BJM ’s success. While Jonze reveals on The Criterion Collection’s new audio commentary track that he and Kaufman were dead-set on getting Malkovich for the film, Being John Malkovich could really be about any celebrity. At the same time, that’s one of the many things that’s funny about Being John Malkovich : It’s a metaphysical black comedy about what people projecting things onto celebrities that don’t necessarily have anything to do with those celebrities. Malkovich just happens to be the guy whose mind Schwartz (John Cusack) and his vampish colleague Maxine (Catherine Keener) invade after they inadvertently discover a miniature portal into his head, and so his comic performance is consequently often overlooked in discussions of the film. He’s the biggest butt of Kaufman and Jonze’s jokes (I love when Maxine casually insults him by saying that he has a “too-prominent brow”), but he also reaffirms his fantastic comic timing, as when he cops a feel after ineffectually cooing to Maxine, “Shall we away to the boudoir?” Malkovich also demonstrates a deceptively subtle knack for physical comedy, like when he gives a buffoonishly perplexed look after being told by a date that he’s “creepy.” In a moment’s time, he scratches his head and tucks his lower lip beneath his teeth. It’s pretty hilarious because it’s done with such sly conviction. How the DVD Makes the Case for the Film : Criterion includes a number of great little behind-the-scenes on its new two-disc DVD set. In an interview with comedian John Hodgman, Malkovich reveals that when he was first given the script, “I saw the title and didn’t really think much about it.” He then initially turned the project down at the behest of his producing partner Russ Smith, who wanted Kaufman and Jonze to make the film “about” someone other than Malkovich. Later, Malkovich was taken aside again by Francis Ford Coppola and introduced directly to Jonze, whom Coppola said “everyone would [eventually] be working for.” According to Malkovich, after he signed onto the project, Kaufman apparently cut “some of the worst jokes about me — meaning the most cruelest ones,” from the screenplay. “I like those jokes,” he tells Hodgman nonchalantly. “I think they’re really funny.” Ironically, while Malkovich says that the film, “isn’t at all about me, it’s about people’s perceptions of me,” he apparently suggested that Charlie Sheen play his character’s best friend in Being John Malkovich . (Kevin Bacon had apparently already turned down that role.) But Malkovich had never met Sheen until that point; he just “struck me as the kind of person I would go to in an existential crisis.” Other Interesting Trivia : There’s a really bizarre and hilariously unfocused audio commentary track on disc one, where Michel Gondry, who was originally supposed to direct the film (he would later work with Kaufman on Human Nature before their Oscar-winning collaboration Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind ) talks about everything but the film. At one point, he calls Spike Jonze up and jokingly browbeats him to confess that he fell in love with Keener on set. This is after Gondry wonders aloud if the cameraman got a boner when filming a POV shot from Malkovich’s perspective while he has sex with Keener. Gondry dismisses the idea that Malkovich became aroused by Keener but still insists that the cameraman and the director must have gotten sprung. I wonder what Malkovich thinks… PREVIOUS INESSENTIAL ESSENTIALS The Last Temptation of Christ The Sitter Citizen Ruth The Broken Tower Dogville Night Call Nurses Strange Fruit: The Beatles’ Apple Records Jeremiah Johnson Simon Abrams is a NY-based freelance film critic whose work has been featured in outlets like The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Vulture and Esquire. Additionally, some people like his writing, which he collects at Extended Cut .
Looks like that first steamy image from Brian DePalma’s femme thriller Passion was just the tip of the erotic iceberg! New images from the film have emerged from Cannes , where the film is seeking buyers, showing more of stars Rachel McAdams as a businesswoman and Noomi Rapace as her assistant, who become locked in a deadly power struggle that will involve lingerie, showers, and kinky masks. If these pics don’t get this movie sold, I don’t know what will. Passion is a remake of the 2010 French film Love Crime , which starred Kristen Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier; it’s DePalma’s first film since 2007’s Redacted , and judging from the stir the first image has created, should mark a return to DePalma’s wheelhouse. And, really: Has there been a single film still in recent memory as immediately enthralling and dangerous and seductive as the Passion mask shot below? Sign me up. The new images were posted to the film’s Facebook page (via The Playlist and De Palma A La Mod ), which adds this synopsis: The offices of a prominent multinational corporation is the setting for this story of a power struggle between two contemporary women. Isabelle has unlimited admiration for her direct superior, Christine, a woman well-schooled in the ways of power. Christine enjoys holding sway over Isabelle, leads her one step at a time and ever more deeply into a game of seduction and manipulation, of dominance and servitude. The game is played for keeps, and there is no turning back. [via The Playlist ]
“Olivier spent his last 30 years as a workaholic, reproducing the same rigorous performance schedule that had characterized his rise to fame. He worked so intensely, and for so long, that many interpreted it as a means of making penance for his behavior toward Leigh. Still, there are dozens of plays, movies, roles, and dalliances this piece hasn’t even touched. I could spend another 4,500 words of your time simply describing his 1960s career, the influence of his filmic Shakespeare, or the dozens of accounts, some more substantial than others, that he was bisexual. But for all of his genius, all of his work in sustaining and rejuvenating the theater before, during, and after World War II, his passion for Leigh — and hers in return — remains his defining feature.” [ The Hairpin ]
Finally! Brian De Palma is getting out of the repugnant war-screed business pioneered in Redacted and back into the sexy-time homage-remake business with which he made his name. This time it’s Passion , a thriller based on the late Alain Corneau’s acclaimed 2010 French potboiler Love Crime and featuring Rachel McAdams and Noomi Rapace taking over for Kristen Scott Thomas and Ludivine Sagnier, respectively. In the first photo released from the film, the actresses do what comes naturally… to, uh, De Palma. Is that necessarily a bad thing? The Cannes market will be the first to know, with Passion headed to the Croisette as one of the myriad films on the block — yet most likely the only one with the synopsis passage, “Christine loves surprises. Naked she goes to meet the mystery lover waiting in her bedroom…” File under LOLrotic. Or not? Maybe it’s a worthy successor to Corneau. Anyway, here’s the full breakdown via The Playlist : An erotic thriller in the tradition of Dressed To Kill and Basic Instinct , Brian de Palma’s PASSION tells the story of a deadly power struggle between two women in the dog-eat-dog world of international business. Christine possesses the natural elegance and casual ease associated with one who has a healthy relationship with money and power. Innocent, lovely and easily exploited, her admiring protégé Isabelle is full of cutting-edge ideas that Christine has no qualms about stealing. They’re on the same team, after all… Christine takes pleasure in exercising control over the younger woman, leading her one step at a time ever deeper into a game of seduction and manipulation, dominance and humiliation. But when Isabelle falls into bed with one of Christine’s lovers, war breaks out. On the night of the murder, Isabelle is at the ballet, while Christine receives an invitation to seduction. From whom? Christine loves surprises. Naked she goes to meet the mystery lover waiting in her bedroom… [ The Playlist ]
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