Every year for the past four years, at every concert I’ve been to, I’ve tried to meet Justin. From hotel stalking, to just simply going to buyouts and waiting outside the tour bus, it’s never happened. It all started this time with me not having any tickets to the Believe tour for Houston, Texas. I didn’t think I would get tickets, but the next day my local radio station started giving out tickets. I ended up being the first one to win tickets from them! I expected to go and enjoy the concert, with no intentions of meeting him. My friend then told me to join BieberFever.com and enter the contest for meet and greets! I entered, and ended up not winning. But my sister, who didn’t send in a picture, but sent in an essay, and showed Hoogs how #BiebsMeetDestinyAndFaith was trending, won! The day of the concert came and I was SO nervous. I went to the venue around 10 AM, and hung around the venue all day with my friends. I had butterflies in my stomach all day long. I literally felt so sick, and could not eat at all! I mean, I WAS MEETING JUSTIN BIEBER. I couldn’t believe it myself. We got our meet and greets around 3 pm and went in line. We were in line for a good hour, and the lady said, “Make friends! Six girls in a picture!” My group got together, and since me and my twin sister have never met Justin, my friends let us stand next to him. When we got to go in, I walked in first and saw him. He looked perfect. Literally, his face is flawless. He had on a brown shirt, a SnapBack and glasses. I said, “Hi Justin” nervously, and he said “Hey sweetie!” and held out his arms for a hug. I hugged him, then the other girls poured in and said hi and got their hugs. Before we took our picture, I said “Justin, can I kiss you?” And he said, “No there’s too many girls, lets just take a regular picture, ok?” And I was like “Oh ok…” and he said “Next time we meet, you can kiss me.” I was like ok cool, but on the inside my ovaries exploded into like a million pieces. They snapped the picture and we hugged him goodbye one last time and left. Even though it was only like 2 minutes, I’m so grateful I got to meet him. If you haven’t met him, don’t lose hope because I know it will happen. It happened for me! Just believe. More here: Every year for the past four years, at every concert I’ve been…
Can aliens be bigger drama queens than vampires? Next spring will tell. With the last installment of The Twilight Saga opening this weekend, Summit Entertainment has begun priming Twi-Hards for its next Stephenie Meyer project, The Host , which hits the big screen on March 29. The scenario laid out in the trailer bears some similarities to early Twilight , except the roles seem reversed. Melanie Ryder ( Saoirse Ronan ) and Jared Howe ( Max Irons ) comprise the Bella Swan-Edward Cullen core of the story, but in this case it’s Melanie who is altered — by an extraterrestrial, not supernatural force. (It’s unclear whether that means Jared plays a really passive dude in the picture.) Parasitic aliens are using humans as hosts to take over the planet — steely blue irises are the giveaway that a person has been infected — and Melanie, who, with Jared, is part of a rebel group fighting back against the invasion, eventually becomes one of them. Or does she? Meyer’s book is about how Mel, who remains partially conscious, fights back against the parasite controlling her body using her emotions and memories and eventually forms a bond with it that could help save the human race. (Cue dramatic score.) As you might expect from a Meyer novel, romantic complications, angst and action scenes ensue. Andrew Niccol , who directed the 1997 sci-fi gem Gattaca, helmed The Host , so my expectations are higher than usual, but I hope the movie isn’t as exposition heavy as this trailer. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
I’ve had Isabeli Fontana on the site for a few Picture Moments before , but never a full-blown post. Looking at these pictures of the Brazilian model at the MTV EMA’s though, I’m starting to think I may have been missing out. Sure, I have no idea what to make of the outfit, other than that she must be auditioning for some new superhero movie. But hey, I’d watch it. I’ve got a thing for smoking hot chicks in skintight leather jumping around. I know, I know, I’m a total nerd. » view all 11 photos Related Articles: Amy Childs Is My Kind Of Lady Amy Childs Hides Her Only Talents Amy Childs’ Big Breasts In A Little Top Adriana Lima’s Two Million Dollar Boobies Photos: WENN.com
Mitt Romney was on the wrong end of the 2012 presidential election results . Now, adding insult to injury, his Facebook numbers are dropping like mad. A new site, DisappearingRomney (dot) com, tracks the GOP candidate’s bleeding of “Likes” on the social media site – which once topped 800 per hour – in real time . Two graphs, “Recent Like Count For Mitt Romney” and “Real Time Like Count for Mitt Romney,” illustrate Romney’s downward trajectory as it happens. 12,041,819 people like Mitt Romney. Wait, 12,041,814 … 12,041,811 … President Barack Obama, for his part, is at 33,255,180 and climbing. Not everyone is a fan, of course … namely the woman who’s Obama Facebook slur and assassination threat got her fired from her job at Cold Stone Creamery.
Don’t use the term “killer whale” in front of Marion Cotillard. In her new Oscar contender Rust and Bone , the actress may play a whale trainer who loses her legs to one of the creatures, but at an advance screening of the picture in New York on Thursday, Cotillard told me she prefers the term “orca.” Free Willy the movie is not, but that didn’t stop Cotillard from bonding with her new aquatic pals. In my red carpet interview, below, Cotillard also has something to say about Americans who don’t watch French films. Cotillard looked stunning in Christian Dior, who hosted the screening along with Vanity Fair and The Cinema Society. Rust and Bone hits theaters Nov. 23. Follow Movieline on Twitter . Follow Grace on Twitter .
On October 20, 2012 I met Justin Bieber for the second time. My mom and I were driving 10 hours from Michigan to Minnesota for the concert. On our way there, we had to stop because it was late and we were tired. When we got to the hotel my mom got an email “Congratulations Melissa! You’re officially invited to attend the photo meet and greet TOMORROW NIGHT, October 20th in Minneapolis, Minnesota!” My mom and I both started to jump up and down in excitement. The first time I met Justin, I didn’t get a hug because he was sick. I had made it my goal to get my hug the Believe tour. We were both way too excited to sleep now but we went to our room and got everything ready for the next day. When we got to the venue, we waited outside and after a while we saw some dancers, his bass player, and the photographer. We gave them all bracelets that say ‘BELIEVE’ on them. (We gave those to everyone on the crew we met) We also showed them the necklace that my mom made for Justin. They all said he would love it. It was finally time to go pick up the meet and greet passes and go wait in line. While waiting, I saw Dan Kanter so I went over and gave him the necklace my mom made for him and a bracelet. He thanked me and said he remembered me from the last tour because of the picture book we gave him. I almost died when he said that! We took a picture with him wearing the necklace then he said he had to go check on his friends that were going to meet Justin. In line, we met two girls who had never met him before and we told them that if us four got to go together, we would let them stand next to Justin in the picture since I already have. When we got near the front of the line, we called Kenny over and gave him a bracelet. He thanked us and told us to have fun! Now we were at the front. Just about 30 seconds away from meeting the most amazing guy EVER. When we walked through the curtain, his grandma, grandpa, and Ryan Butler were all lined up against the wall just watching everyone’s reactions to seeing Justin. They all had the biggest smiles. We walked over to Justin and he went to put an arm around my mom and said “Hi mom!!” My mom said “Hi honey! I’ve already met you, let her stand next to you,” and put the other girl in her place. We took the picture and as we were about to get rushed out. I turned to Justin and said “Can I please have a hug?” He smiled and said, “Of course! Come here!” And I got my hug. After 2 years of waiting, it finally happened. Then again, as we were being rushed out, I told Justin I had gifts for him. You aren’t supposed to be able to give him the gifts personally, but as they tried taking it from me, someone stepped in and said “No. SHE has to give that to him personally! Let her give that to him!” I gave him the necklace and the BELIEVE bracelet and he told me “Thank you.” I said “You’re welcome. My mom actually made the necklace for you.” He looked down at the necklace, then up to my mom, then back into my eyes and said “Thank you so much. This is so cool!” I told him you’re welcome and said goodbye. I walked out and completely lost it. I had just stared into Justin Bieber’s eyes. He held eye contact that whole time! And we were practically holding hands as I gave him the gift! We found out on Monday (on our way home from the concert the next day), that he put the necklace on right after we left. Scrappy also posted a picture on Sunday of him and Justin, and Justin had the necklace on again! I couldn’t believe he actually wore it. We were in shock. I also saw him on October 21, October 23, and October 24. On October 23, I actually helped 2 girls get tickets from Scooter, telling him how much they deserved to get in. It was a great feeling and I’ll never forget it. Thank you Justin, Scooter, Kenny, Dan, and everyone else I met that past weekend. I love you all and I’ll see you guys in November with your blankets! -JoHanna (@JoHannaBeliebes) Link: On October 20, 2012 I met Justin Bieber for the second time. My…
My Bieber experience started on October 31, 2012 on Justin’s off day in Memphis . Me and a friend got downtown at 9 a.m. and started on our search. We knew he’d be at one of the three hotels that celebrities have stayed at before but didn’t know which one. After a couple of hours, we stopped and asked a police man what he knew. He led us to the exact hotel Justin and his crew were staying at. We finally saw some tour buses so we knew we were at the right place. We met some backup singers, dancers, and later we saw Justin’s grandparents! They were so sweet and even let us get a picture with them. We kept asking where Justin was to all the hotel staff and Justin’s crew but everyone kept saying he wasn’t there. Later on we found out he was about 20 mins away at our local mall but we wouldn’t have made it there in time . We decided to go eat dinner and just wait for him to return to his hotel. We were downtown for 10 hours looking for him but no luck. I also entered the BieberFever contest a couple of weeks earlier and had been checking my phone nonstop all day hoping for an email. While we were at dinner, I checked my email and there it was: “Congratulations Holli!” I started freaking out! I couldn’t believe it!!! After that email we both just went home. I had to figure out what I was going to wear. November 1 came and I was so excited. After we got our wristbands the line seemed like forever. It was finally our turn and when we walked in, I couldn’t believe I was finally meeting him. He looked beautiful. He said, “Hey love” and we all said hey back. A man put us all in our spots and I just couldn’t stop staring at Justin. I was so happy. After the picture was taken the man tried to rush us out but I asked Justin for a hug first and he gave me one and smiled. My friend started balling when we walked out and I was just in shock. We finally met him! The concert was amazing of course. I was right by the cat walk and touched Carly Rae Jepsen’s hand and Justin’s while he was singing “Baby” shirtless! I even got it on video. Bottom line, that entire day was amazing and I wish I could keep reliving it. You truly need to believe and be determined to meet him and it will happen. Never say never. -@holliann93 Excerpt from: My Bieber experience started on October 31, 2012 on Justin’s off…
Introspective masculinity, women on top, cross-dressing PSAs , gay undertones — the James Bond franchise has come a long way in 50 years, most notably during the current era built around Daniel Craig ’s serious Blond Bond with the icy blue eyes. Behind the scenes, producers Barbara Broccoli and her half-brother Michael G. Wilson set the record straight on recent Idris Elba-as-Bond rumors and pointed to the post-9/11 shift that spurred them to take Bond from the slick reign of Pierce Brosnan to the morally-complex brand of progressive contemporary heroism embodied in this week’s Skyfall . “I think once we made the decision to go with Casino Royal e – we had the rights, and we decided to make the change after Die Another Day – it had a lot to do with 9/11 and the way the world was at that time,” Broccoli told Movieline recently in Los Angeles. “A post-9/11 world. It was a real opportunity to recalibrate.” Craig’s Bond re-set the franchise on a grittier path starting with Casino Royale , which exposed 007’s only vulnerability — his heart — and its continuation Quantum of Solace , which healed his emotional wounds with violent redemption. Skyfall , however, finds Bond unencumbered by romance; feeling his loneliness and approaching obsolescence. His new enemy is mortality itself — and Silva, the off-kilter, tech-savvy nemesis bent on revenge against former boss M (Judi Dench) played with calculated control by Javier Bardem. “They are mirror images of one another,” explained Wilson, who has produced every Bond film since 1979’s Moonraker . “They come from the same background, and in a way M has sacrificed them at one point or another for what she considered to be a greater good. But one becomes obsessed by this and it drives him. The other one goes through a funk but gets over it and comes back to defend her and the country. It’s an interesting thing about how people cope with the negative things that happen in their lives.” PHOTO GALLERY: 007 MINGLES WITH ROYALTY AT THE SKYFALL PREMIERE In a franchise known as much for its suave but patriotic spy hero as its insanely evil and flamboyant villains, Skyfall dares to contradict both tropes. Bond, for the first time, questions whether queen and country value his service, his sacrifices, and his very life, while Silva, it’s revealed, actually has a pretty good reason to seek vengeance. Skyfall asks a question relevant to today’s global military interests: Who is to blame when the few are sacrificed for the good of the many? “We wanted to create a complex story, and the whole point is that things aren’t black and white anymore,” said Broccoli. “As M says, they have to operate in the shadows. You don’t know who the enemies are. You have to fight on a very different playing field than when there was a more specific world order. Ultimately it comes down to individuals and the spirit of self-sacrifice for the greater good, and that’s what Bond is about. It’s about heroism.” That heroism isn’t exclusively reserved for James Bond, either. Broccoli and Wilson see the role of women in Skyfall as part of a larger legacy of 007 heroines in various forms — mostly shapely ones, embodied in five decades of Bond girls — that stems from writer Ian Fleming’s own wartime experiences. “You have to understand that in his experience during the war, women were very active and part of the resistance, part of the war effort,” said Broccoli. “So he saw women as being very heroic and courageous. And I think when you look at the early films, that’s very evident in the characters — they’re all very strong characters. Some of them have had some hardship, but they all go about their missions with a real determination. Many times they sacrifice themselves for Bond, and I think that’s something that definitely came out of his experience in the war.” PHOTO GALLERY: MEET BERENICE MARLOHE, SKYFALL ‘S NEW BOND GIRL Bond’s women, of course, weren’t always written with strengths to complement their overt sexualization. “I think that there was a period in time in the films when the women became more window-dressing,” she admitted. “But certainly in the last five or six films there’s been a real effort to make them as complex and interesting and heroic, or as bad and evil as the villain. And casting Judi Dench as M, making her the authority figure, has given that relationship between Bond and M a lot more complexity. But I think the films have evolved the same way society has evolved. I hope that they’ll continue to evolve.” Could there conceivably be a female Bond one day? “Everything is possible,” teased Wilson. That said, Bond is a man, and will probably stay that way. Broccoli, who produced the Equals campaign PSA, which featured Craig as 007 dressed in drag , cautioned against getting too carried away with the possibilities. “It isn’t about interchanging men and women, it’s about giving people an equal kind of opportunity,” she said. “So there’s certainly the possibility of having a female heroic figure that is like Bond, but just to interchange them — I don’t know what the point would be.” As for the notorious Skyfall scene in which Bond and Silva share a flirtatious exchange , Wilson and Broccoli are amused by fan speculation about 007’s newly fluid sexuality. “I think they’re trying to psych each other out,” Wilson said of the scene. A game of chicken, so to speak, I asked? “Yes!” he replied. So maybe the producers aren’t quite ready for an openly bisexual Bond, or a lady Bond. They’re also not jumping to replace Craig in that bespoke Tom Ford suit either, despite a report that Idris Elba was being courted to become the first black 007. Broccoli set the record straight. “I love Idris and I met him on something else,” she explained. “We are very happy with Daniel Craig [laughs] and I always say I can only be in love with one person at a time.” “Daniel Craig is James Bond,” she continued. “It’s not even… we can’t even think about it. It’s like going down the aisle to get married and looking for your next husband. It doesn’t work that way. But [Elba] is a phenomenal actor. With Craig signed on for at least two more Bond films, we likely won’t see a new Bond come into the picture for a few more years. But could the future of Bond ostensibly be color-blind? “Oh, absolutely,” said Broccoli. “Why not?” Read more on Skyfall and celebrate Bond’s 50th Anniversary with all things 007 . Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Tony Scott’s dramatic and still-mysterious leap to his death in August has grounded the Top Gun sequel . The New York Times reported that the film, which was being planned by the filmmaker, the star of the original, Tom Cruise, and producer Jerry Bruckheimer, has “fallen apart” in the wake of Scott’s suicide . If there is a silver lining to the story, it’s that a 3D version of the original Top Gun may be released in February 2013. Earlier this year, Legend3D, which specializes in converting two-dimensional films into the more eye-popping format, completed a conversion of the film, which, the Times notes, “as a way to whet the world’s appetite for a sequel.” Since Scott leapt to his death from the Vincent Thomas Bridge in Los Angeles on Aug. 19, however, Paramount, the studio behind both the original Top Gun and its sequel, is “considering a release in February, perhaps beginning with a one-week exclusive showing on domestic Imax screens.” [New York Times] The paper also reports that the studio is treading carefully because it does not want to seem insensitive or exploitative. Although the Los Angeles coroner officially ruled Scott’s death a suicide, questions remain about his reasons for taking his own life. According to the Times , the filmmaker’s brother, Prometheus director Ridley Scott has asked a number of people who knew and worked with his sibling not to discuss his “life or demise.” Tony Scott’s last work appears to be the below Diet Mountain Dew commercial featuring Dallas Mavericks and HDNet owner, billionaire Mark Cuban . Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
It’s easy to draw parallels to President Obama in Steven Spielberg ’s historical Oscar hopeful Lincoln , a portrait of the 16th American President who stood tall, orated well, united a divided nation across color and party lines, and was re-elected to office for a second term. But Spielberg insists he had no specific political agenda in mind when the long-gestating Lincoln came to fruition. “I would have been very glad to have made Lincoln in the year 2000,” Spielberg explained recently in Los Angeles, “the year after I met [author Doris Kearns Goodwin, whose book Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln was adapted by Lincoln scribe Tony Kushner]. It took her a couple years to write the book. It took us more than a couple years to get the screenplay written. So, I wasn’t waiting for a certain time.” The divided politics of Lincoln’s presidency, as explored at length in Spielberg’s film, find pointed parallels in President Obama’s tenure in the White House: A President with a humanistic streak tasked with bringing war to an end, Lincoln is depicted wrestling with military crises, huge wartime losses of life, moral questions of personal freedoms, Constitutional history-making, all-too eager rivals, and, notably, his own family issues at home. Still, Spielberg says the Obama-Lincoln parallels have nothing to do with it. “At one point I flirted with coming out on the 200th anniversary of Lincoln’s birth, but we weren’t ready to make the picture then,” said Spielberg, who spent years wooing star Daniel Day-Lewis and had even resigned himself to not making Lincoln without the actor. “People say ‘Oh, you made it because of what’s happening in politics today.’ No, we were ready to make it during the Bush administration. It had had nothing to do current politics.” That’s not to say no inference at all should be drawn into Lincoln ’s messaging as a reflection of modern politics; it’s just that, despite “tremendous similarities” between politics in the time of Lincoln and today, reading too much into the details might be confusing because of how much the intervening 14 decades have altered America’s political system. “There’s a lot of confusion about the political ideologies of both parties, [which] have switched 180 degrees in 150 years,” he explained. “It’s just too confusing. Everybody claims Lincoln as their own. And everybody should claim Lincoln as their own, because he represents all of us, and what he did basically provided the opportunities that, that all of us are enjoying today.” So while a theatrical release on Friday should bring President Lincoln and his legend to vivid life in the wake of Tuesday’s Obama re-election, those few extra buffer days allowed Spielberg to get some distance from the real-life Presidential race. “I just wanted people to talk about the film, not talk about the election cycle. So I thought it was safer to let people talk about film during the election cycle in this run-up with ads on TV and posters going up and all that, but the actual debut of the film should happen after the election’s been decided. That was my feeling.” Despite peeling the curtain back on Lincoln — the film reveals intimate glimpses of his home life and career, but leaves ambiguous the fringe theories of his sexuality, as hinted at by Kushner in an interview with Metro — Spielberg is happy to continue letting people talk and wonder at any deeper messages seeded within what he otherwise says was meant only to be a portrait of a great figure in American history. “I’m really excited to see how deeply people will reach to contemporize our film,” he said with a smile, “far beyond how it deserves to be contemporized.” Read more on Lincoln , in select theaters Friday . Lincoln closes the 2012 AFI Fest on Thursday. Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
