Onetime collaborators Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach each have a new DVD release this week. The two last worked together on Anderson’s gorgeous and witty Fantastic Mr. Fox , and their idiosyncratic proclivities and points of view are very much on display at both ends of the High/Low spectrum. (As a bonus, both films feature Frances McDormand !) HIGH: Moonrise Kingdom ($29.98 DVD; $34.98 Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital Combo) Who’s Responsible: Written by Wes Anderson and Roman Coppola; directed by Anderson; starring Bill Murray, Frances McDormand, Bruce Willis, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton and Bob Balaban What’s It All About: Misunderstood lovers Suzy (Kara Hayward) and Sam (Jared Gilman) run away together. The fact that they’re both 12 years old and living on an island off the coast of New England doesn’t stand in the way of their plans. Their romantic escapade sets off a flurry of activity among the local adults, including Suzy’s parents (Murray, McDormand), Sam’s scoutmaster (Norton), the local law officer (Willis) and Social Services (Swinton), whom everyone calls “Social Services.” Why It’s Schmancy: After turning off sections of his fanbase with the excessively twee The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited , Anderson has definitely got his groove back with the one-two punch of Mr. Fox and this eccentrically charming love story. Our youthful protagonists take themselves and their relationship utterly seriously, and Anderson affords them the same dignity. From its tracking-shot close-ups to a memorable sequence of the lovers shimmying to ye-ye music, Moonrise Kingdom feels like Godardian amour fou filtered through Anderson’s visual (pop-up book) and emotional ( Peanuts -esque melancholy) sensibilities. Why You Should Own It: Given that Anderson’s first five features eventually got lovingly curated editions from The Criterion Collection, there’s a temptation not to shell out the original, studio-produced release. Still, this DVD features a few extras to tide you over, including tours of the locations (narrated by Balaban) and the sets (conducted by Murray) and a featurette. LOW: Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted (Dreamworks Home Entertainment; $29.98 DVD, $39.99 2-Disc Blu-Ray/DVD + Rainbow Wig, $54.99 3-Disc Blu-Ray 3D/Blu-Ray/DVD) Who’s Responsible: Written by Eric Darnell and Noah Baumbach, directed by Darnell, Tom McGrath and Conrad Vernon; featuring the voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, Jada Pinkett Smith, David Schwimmer, Frances McDormand, Jessica Chastain, Martin Short, Bryan Cranston and Sasha Baron Cohen What’s It All About: After spending two movies escaping from a Manhattan zoo, lion Alex (Stiller), zebra Marty (Rock), hippo Gloria (Pinkett Smith) and giraffe Melman (Schwimmer) decide the Big Apple wasn’t so bad after all and turn tail (literally) for home. The journey involves run-ins with Monaco’s most notorious animal control officer (McDormand) and a crumbling touring circus. Why It’s Fun: The first two entries in this franchise felt generic and unfunny, but the addition of Baumbach to the creative team gives the enterprise a much-needed shot in the haunch. This time, we get plenty of laughs (of both the verbal and slapstick variety) and thrills for kids and their parents. There’s also a psychedelic trapeze number that’s the most mind-melting sequence in a kiddie cartoon since the “Pink Elephants on Parade” number in Dumbo — especially if your home theater is outfitted for 3D. Why You Should Own It: All the versions feature commentary from the three directors, and the Blu-Ray throws in an additional commentary track, pop-up trivia and a round-table discussion with the four stars of the Madagascar series. Alonso Duralde has written about film for The Wrap, Salon and MSNBC.com. He also co-hosts the Linoleum Knife podcast and regularly appears on What The Flick?! (The Young Turks Network) . He is a senior programmer for the Outfest Film Festival in Los Angeles and a pre-screener for the Sundance Film Festival. He also the author of two books: Have Yourself A Movie Little Christmas (Limelight Editions) and 101 Must-See Movies for Gay Men (Advocate Books). Follow Alonso Duralde on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Some dude hit me up to let me know or to ask my opinion about Miley cutting her hair, and I am glad that my legacy, or what people think I care about or know about Miley Cyrus getting a fucking ridiculous black hipster shaved sci/fi haircut, because I don’t care about any bitch’s hair style, I’m too busy staring at her ass, tits or plotting how I’m gonna stare at her ass or tits which takes up more than enough energy than bothering to track her salon visits… That said, she looks hot to me, even without showing off her body, cuz I know what her body looks like, but would look hotter with 3 inches of semen shaped into a slut helmet on her head….but then again, so would all girls.
The Real Housewives of New York City finish off their trip to London and head back home. But “Good Trip, Bad Fall” finds the ladies in a bitter battle of royal proportions. Let’s recap showdowns in our THG +/- review. Um…what is Sonja doing?
I was deeply saddened yesterday to hear of the death of Andrew Sarris , a passionate critic and elegant writer who didn’t just change the landscape of criticism; he changed the way many of us think about movies, challenging, with gentle humor and lots of grace, everything we thought we knew. Sarris was at the vanguard of film criticism in the ’60s and ’70s, along with Pauline Kael and Manny Farber. Over the years, there’s been plenty of fuss made over the Sarris/Kael feud, and movie lovers have often felt pressured to choose one camp or the other. But why? As I’ve said elsewhere, criticism isn’t about consensus – what’s most valuable is a critic’s ability to open your eyes, to make you see things that wouldn’t have occurred to you otherwise. The challenge isn’t just part of the bargain – it’s the whole bargain. And especially as we move further into an era of critic-proof big-budget movies – abetted by newspapers and other publications that happily repackage studio hype even as they’ve decided that professional critics are relics – Sarris’ contributions to the tradition and craft of film criticism have come to seem even more precious. In fact, they’re immeasurable. I knew Andrew only a little, but he and his wife, the extraordinary film critic Molly Haskell, have shown great kindness and generosity toward me. It would have been enough for Andrew Sarris to have been a fine critic. But in the end, it’s how you treat people that matters, and Sarris, who was a teacher as well – he was beloved by his students, and I can only imagine he was wonderful – led by example. Those of us who care about film – who continue to care about its guts and innards as an art form, and about the way it opens us to the wider world – owe a great deal to Andrew Sarris. We won’t see his like again. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
“Somewhere in this block are two judges,” a crime lord declares over loudspeakers in a concrete, locked-down tenement. “I want them dead.” Is this the American remake of Gareth Evans ‘ fantastic silat action pic The Raid ? Nope. It’s the first trailer for Dredd ! As in, the second cinematic coming of Judge Dredd, the futuristic crime fighting officer made famous by Sylvester Stallone , here replaced by a serious-faced, robotic Karl Urban, whose lower jaw we’re going to be seeing a lot of in the September reboot. Pete Travis ( Vantage Point ) directs (after some editing room drama ) the slick-looking Dredd — shot in 3-D — which promises a dirty future ridden with crime, the population under the control of Lena Headey’s drug-pushing villainess. The fictional narcotic “Slo-mo” makes characters feel as if time is moving at a slow crawl, giving Travis the occasion to give things that gorgeous speed-manipulated floating feeling, which should help distract from the glaring familiarity of the film’s set-up. Which brings me to the aforementioned issue; if I hadn’t seen (and loved) The Raid , which exploited the basic premise of a few lone law officers fighting their way through a slum building to get to its big boss with great aplomb, the trailer’s plot reveal would feel a lot fresher. Now I’m just wondering if any of the fights will come close to matching the inventiveness of Evans’ bone-crunching Indonesian picture. And with Urban set to never take off that Dredd mask in the film — and delivering lines like “I’m the law” with no trace of Sly’s charisma — this feels like a precursor to the RoboCop reboot , only with less emotion. And then there’s the Dredd -ness of it all. Olivia Thirlby in that Dredd -ful hairdo will have to work hard to measure up to Diane Lane’s feisty sidekick in 1995’s Judge Dredd , silly as that movie was, even as this Dredd — based more on the comics than its predecessor — is clearly taking a more solemn approach. The most promising element here is Headey and her scarred-but-hot lady crime lord — now there’s something you don’t see often. Verdict: More of a curiosity than a must-see. Dredd hits theaters September 21. [via Machinima ]
The Invisible War by director Kirby Dick and producer Amy Ziering is simply shocking. In this doc, which won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival in January and screened at the recent Provincetown International Film Festival (where it also picked up an audience prize) the filmmaking duo expose a long-brewing scandal in the U.S. military. Sexual assault against both women and men has run rampant throughout the various branches of the military and even up the chain of command. It is, in fact, the chain of command that has, in part, allowed rape and other sexual assault to remain virtually hidden despite its ubiquity. The Invisible War blows the cover off this decades-old (or older) crisis with an emotional and devastating look at the victims of sexual assault and how it can be fixed. Though the film will be released theatrically this weekend, it has already had a major impact. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta screened the film and soon afterward announced some reforms. Though, as Kirby Dick warns in his interview with ML from the recent Provincetown festival, the moves are not enough and the U.S. military still needs to take some cues from its allies in alleviating this scourge. It may be tough to watch, but the film is riveting and the stories of individuals he and Zeiring interview are phenomenal. Dick has screened the film for various groups since Sundance and its subsequent East Coast premiere at Provincetown and, as he explains in his conversation with ML below, audiences have been riveted by what has been uncovered. What led you and your producer Amy Ziering to this topic and ultimately doing a film? Amy and I read an article in by Helen Benedict in Salon and we were astounded by the numbers of people sexually assaulted, and we were equally astounded that nobody had made a feature documentary on this. From a filmmaker point-of-view, that is sort of lucky when that happens. We pretty much decided right then and there that we’d make this film. I remember hearing about the Tailhook scandal in the ’90s when a number of women were assaulted at a U.S. Navy/Marines event in Las Vegas. And despite that, I still thought this was a horrifying yet isolated outrageous incident. I didn’t think it was so pervasive… Yeah, I remember following that situation and the Air Force Academy [situation] and I wondered when I was making this film why I hadn’t done this 15 years ago. It seems so isolated, but then it’s over – but no, it’s systemic. And the military has been very good at conveying that these are isolated. They’ll deny it or then blame the victim or they’ll say it’s been dealt with and it’s in the past. This has been covered up for generations. I would imagine, and I don’t have statistical evidence in this, but I would bet it’s a part of militaries forever and a problem in foreign militaries that have women or even ones that only have men. And that’s one thing we hope that this film will do as it plays around the world, which is to raise the same discussion in those countries as well. Are these people not able to call the police as civilians do or hopefully do? If they’re in the military it’s almost always referred to military authorities. If it happens on base then it automatically is referred to military authorities and if it happens off-base, then yes it is possible to call civilian authorities, but they very often will refer it back to the military. This must’ve been a heart-wrenching experience for both of you filming this doc. My mouth was dropping hearing these stories and I couldn’t help but talk back to the screen. Yeah, it was. Each one of these interviews were equally stunning. Amy did each interview and she did a phenomenal job and she’d be emotionally drained and devastated and be incredibly angry afterward. It was a good combination [for the creation of the film] and I knew we’d get it. The assaults of course were horrifying in and of themselves, but then to see how the institution reacts to these assaults is absolutely incredible. That’s one of the things we hope this film will inspire. Not only the outrage but this sense of responsibility which you’re alluding to that we all have in this country. There’s a sense that there are military families and non-military families and sometimes people without family members in the military think that they’ll simply take care of themselves. We all have responsibility for people in the military. We’re all a part of one society whether we agree with what the military is doing or not. And I’ve seen this happening. One of the things I foresaw was bring together veterans groups and women’s groups. In fact, we’ve set up a coalition to extend the impact of the film together with civil rights groups and sexual assault groups. And what we want to see happen is a push for reform after the film has gone. Did you reach out to any of the people who were accused? We decided not to do that. But what we did try to do is reach out to someone who was convicted. We tried to do that through many defense attorneys. We were interested in getting his perspective. It would be a courageous act for someone to come forward and talk about this, but ultimately we weren’t able to get anyone. Traditionalists may hold all of this up as evidence that women shouldn’t serve in the military or that they shouldn’t serve alongside men in the military and I was curious what your response is to that? Well I think first of all, that’s holding the men in our military with great disrespect. I believe the men in the military are more than capable of taking care of and not assaulting the people who they serve with side by side. And in the second place, these women make amazing soldiers. The women in our film are the people you would want in the military. They are so good at what they do and so idealistic. They’re model soldiers and that’s one of the tragedies. There was this problem with these gay translators being dismissed from the military and that was also a significant loss to the military. How did you get Leon Panetta to see this? Well, it was part of a long campaign immediately after Sundance. This movie was made to change policy. We got this into the hands of high ranking retired officers. We had dozens of screenings for officers’ wives, non profits, other military organizations and corporate leaders to get the discussion going and not only get the military aware of it, but also to get them to react to it. Eventually, it got to the Defense Secretary who saw the film and two days later held a press conference to announce significant policy changes. We later learned from our executive producer Jennifer Siebel Newsom, the wife of California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom – and all three know each other – that Jennifer saw Leon Panetta at the White House Correspondence dinner and Panetta told her he was really moved by the film and decided to hold the press conference in part because of the film. So the campaign was successful to that degree. But there’s a lot more to do. The changes he announced do not fully take investigation outside the chain of command. It still remains within the chain of command and until that happens, there’s still opportunity for great miscarriages of justice. It should be taken out and there should be no opportunity for a conflict of interest. Take it out like it’s done in every other justice system. There are running sexual themes in many of your films including Twist of Faith and Outrage . Is it fair to say you’re drawn to topics related to sexual taboo – or maybe not “taboo” exactly but you get what I’m saying… Maybe not so much taboo, but yes I think there is. On the one hand sexuality is made for the cinema – any sexuality. But I’m also interested in almost all my films about sexuality and its relationship to trauma. Some more than others, but in some ways trauma is playing some sort of role to sexuality. Certainly as a documentary filmmaker I approach this topic similar to a novelist. The sexuality and the traumatic history of a subject makes for great material to work with. I think it’s something I work with – not always – but do work with [consistently].” Has the audience reaction here in Provincetown and at Sundance been what you have expected? Oh yeah, even more so. I also do these small screenings in various places [between the festivals] and people just wouldn’t get up afterward and I’ve never had that. I saw that they were really affected by this. It’s the experience we had when we were doing these interviews. You’re like, ‘this can’t be true.’ But at the same time you just want to reach out to them. Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Paris Hilton took advantage of a window of opportunity that her trashy exhibitionist ass saw in the form of paparazzi pointing cameras at her…She was probably like “shit it’s like old times, people actually care to see me, well I better give these pictures legs, so that websites post the shit, even if in a mocking way of my trashy stripper looking g-string tanline, one I got by strategically wearing the same underwear to the tanning Salon everyday, so that I’d look like those trashy whores that used to wear low rise jeans, with tan lines up and over their hips, you know cuz despite having billions of dollars, I’m a trashy whore too, I mean I even have a fucking sex tape”…..at least that’s what I assume went through her head, but maybe I’m giving her too much credit, maybe she’s more the kind of girl who is like “ass itchy thanks to herpes, scratch even if camera sees me” cuz she has no shame….and if she did you’d know that shitty blowjob she gave in her porn would never have seen the light of day…. To See The Rest of the Pics FOLLOW THIS LINK I approve of this message: LIKE US ON FACEBOOK EVEN IF YOU DON’T LIKE US
Just another piece of jewelry or did Bow Wow like her so much he put a ring on it? Rev. Run’s lil angel Angela Simmons was spotted sporting this sparkler on her third finger outside of a Beverly Hills Nail Salon. That jawn looks a little too official to be just another everyday gem. Don’tcha think? We’re not buying the just friends business between the Pastry designer and Bow Wow, who is clearly her boyfriend. The pair were spotted at breakfast yesterday which makes this ring thing seem even more suspicious. Do celebs think just cuz the ring’s not on the right finger folks will get thrown off??? FameFlynetPictures More On Bossip! Played: The Most Embarrassing Ways These People Found Out They Got Cheated On Coupled Up: Kimmy Cakes And Kanye West Cozy Up For The Cameras In Paris, Kim Rocks Ye’s $5800 Giuseppes [Photos] Tale Of The Tape: Rih Rih Vs. Karrueche…Which One Should Breezy Take?! Karma Is A Mother: Poor Fantasia Dumped By Baby Daddy Cuz He Thinks He Loves His Wife!
