‘Jersey Shore’ stars and fellow Northeast celebs brave the snow to update fans on the winter storm. By Emily Blake The cast of “Jersey Shore” Photo: MTV
New England is bracing for a possibly record-setting winter storm on Friday, with up to two feet of snow expected and airlines canceling thousands of flights. The system – Winter Storm Nemo – was blowing in from the Midwest where it began dropping snow on the Chicago area on Thursday afternoon. It was due to bring light snow to the Northeastern United States on Friday morning before ramping up to blizzard conditions by afternoon and evening. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino closed schools on Friday and urged businesses to consider allowing staff to stay home, to reduce the risk of getting stranded. “We are hardy New Englanders, let me tell you, and used to these types of storms. But I also want to remind everyone to use common sense,” he said. “Basically, stay home. Stay put after noontime tomorrow.” City officials up and down the northeastern United States were bracing for the snow storm, readying fleets of plows and salt trucks to keep streets clear. Airport officials advised travelers to try to reschedule flights. The National Weather Service said Boston could get 18-24 inches of snow on Friday and Saturday, its first heavy snowfall in almost two years. All or most of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire could all see 18-24 inches as well, with locally higher amounts possible. New York City could receive at least a foot of snow. Light snow is expected to begin falling around 7 a.m. on Friday, with heavier snow and winds gusting as high as 60-75 miles per hour as the day progresses. “It’s the afternoon rush-hour time frame into the evening and overnight when the height of the storm will be,” said Kim Buttrick of the National Weather Service. Airlines have already nixed more than 2,200 flights planned for Friday, with the largest number of cancelations at airports in New York, Chicago and Boston. Be safe, people.
New England is bracing for a possibly record-setting winter storm on Friday, with up to two feet of snow expected and airlines canceling thousands of flights. The system – Winter Storm Nemo – was blowing in from the Midwest where it began dropping snow on the Chicago area on Thursday afternoon. It was due to bring light snow to the Northeastern United States on Friday morning before ramping up to blizzard conditions by afternoon and evening. Boston Mayor Thomas Menino closed schools on Friday and urged businesses to consider allowing staff to stay home, to reduce the risk of getting stranded. “We are hardy New Englanders, let me tell you, and used to these types of storms. But I also want to remind everyone to use common sense,” he said. “Basically, stay home. Stay put after noontime tomorrow.” City officials up and down the northeastern United States were bracing for the snow storm, readying fleets of plows and salt trucks to keep streets clear. Airport officials advised travelers to try to reschedule flights. The National Weather Service said Boston could get 18-24 inches of snow on Friday and Saturday, its first heavy snowfall in almost two years. All or most of Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont and New Hampshire could all see 18-24 inches as well, with locally higher amounts possible. New York City could receive at least a foot of snow. Light snow is expected to begin falling around 7 a.m. on Friday, with heavier snow and winds gusting as high as 60-75 miles per hour as the day progresses. “It’s the afternoon rush-hour time frame into the evening and overnight when the height of the storm will be,” said Kim Buttrick of the National Weather Service. Airlines have already nixed more than 2,200 flights planned for Friday, with the largest number of cancelations at airports in New York, Chicago and Boston. Be safe, people.
It’s Martin Luther King day or some other long weekend bullshit in America…and you should have taken advantage of it and gone south like some kind of rich jetsetter who isn’t sitting on a mountain of debt…with a pile of bills you can’t afford headed your way….or the need to buy a new car to get to your shitty job that barely keeps you afloat….or a need to save money for a new roof cuz that leak is starting to give your kid pneumonia…..you know cuz winter is the fucking worst….and the beach is the best…and sometimes throwing all your responsibilities aside and telling your wife you’re going out to get milk only to never return is the best option to allow you to be the man you want to be….free…. Well, for those of us stuck in the snow, I figured this Victoria’s Secret model….from Sweden topless in some random summery shoot was better to stare at than the harsh reality that our lives suck…especially on a long weekend….in the middle of winter…when we’d all rather be staring at bikini tits…. No idea when this shoot is from….but it doesn’t matter….
The Batman finale was the most watched movie trailer on YouTube, though it actually placed only third overall. Also in Thursday’s round-up of news, the Palm Springs International Film Festival sets its lineup including opening and closing titles; Sundance unveiled its competition juries; and release dates are set for Arnold Schwarzenegger ‘s Ten and Paramount’s Anchorman sequel. The Dark Knight Rises Most Watched Movie Trailer in 2012 The film ranked highest of any film related trailer, placing third followed by Skyfall (4th), Ted (5th) and Hunger Games (6th). The top two spots in the rankings, based on how many times a cop was viewed, how long people stayed on the clip and how many times people searched for a clip instead of clicking on an ad, were two video games: Activision’s Call of Duty Black Ops 2 , Deadline reports . Blancanieves to Open Palm Springs Film Festival The film, directed by Spanish filmmaker Pablo Berger, is a re-imagining of the Snow White fairytale, will open the Palm Springs fest January 3. The festival will close out January 13 with Paul Andrew Williams’ Unfinished Song starring Terence Stamp and Vanessa Redgrave. As usual the festival will host a large number of Best Foreign Language Oscar contenders. In all the event will screen 180 films from 68 countries, Deadline reports . Sundance Film Festival Sets Juries Sundance Institute named its 19 members in five separate juries for the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Former Fox head Tom Rothman, filmmaker Ed Burns, Waiting for Superman filmmaker Davis Guggenheim, 1998 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Liz Garbus ( The Farm: Angola, USA ), director Brett Morgen ( Crossfire Hurricane ) and Participant Media exec Diane Weyermann. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Action Thriller Ten Set for January 2014 Schwarzenegger stars as the leader of an elite DEA task force that manages to neutralize a cartel safe house, but after the raid, the ten members of the group start getting eliminated. End of Watch ‘s David Ayer will direct, THR reports . Paramount Sets Anchorman Sequel Release Date Anchorman 2 is the follow up to the 2004 cult comedy that grossed $85 million domestically. Paramount will bow the pic December 20, 2013. The feature stars Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, David Koechner and Christina Applegate with Adam McKay directing, THR reports .
I have said it before and I will keep sayign it until someone hears me…cuz I am committed to this cause…and I am not going to give it up or let it go…until what I’ve been preaching comes true….and that is that Kate Upton is an overrated fat chick in training who has a sloppy body, and average at best fat chick face, who’s tits may be big and saggy already at 19, but who will have the rest of her quickly follow…..but until that happens she’s totally hyped up for no fucking reason…other than that people like tits…and don’t get that sloppy tits aren’t fucking hot no matter what size they are…especially when they come stock with a fucking gut…. Seriously, she’s on set posing in Antartica cuz Sports Illustrated grasps that they need to milk her one more year…cuz she gets hits as the public is brain washed into liking her….so they have her up in the snow…and her nipples aren’t even hard…even though it is freezing.,.,.reminding me just how stretched out they are from all her overeating…cuz if you have fuck fat chicks, like I have….you will know…their hard nipples….are barely hard cuz they tape up too much surface area. She’s low grade pussy at best…stop fucking celebrating her…it is an injustice…Freedom has been attacked. TO SEE THE REST OF THE PICS FOLLOW THIS LINK
As rollicking and rough as a drive down a dirt road with no suspension, Lawless is a tale of three-bootlegging brothers from Prohibition-era Franklin County, Virginia, who are, in the words of one character, some “hard-ass crackers.” Directed by Australia’s John Hillcoat ( The Road ) and written by musician Nick Cave (who’s adapted Matt Bondurant’s historical novel The Wettest County in the World ), Lawless is, like their last collaboration The Proposition , a kind of remixed Western at heart. It’s a story in which the law and the outlaws are equally outsized and dangerous — and a world in which the fighting has nothing to do with keeping order and everything to do with displays of strength. “It is not the violence that sets men apart. It is the distance that he is prepared to go,” declares oldest brother Forrest Bondurant (Tom Hardy), the hardest boiled of them all. To say that Lawless (or The Proposition ) romanticizes violence isn’t quite right — every tommy-gun bullet wound and knife wound is sickeningly visceral, and when a character gets his throat cut the man doing the deed has to saw through resisting flesh. But the film does relish and find lyricism in these tribal philosopher psychopaths who use force with the measured anticipation of an oenophile savoring a sip of wine. The sheer appreciation Lawless has for its characters and its setting makes it a pleasure to settle into, even though the film can be carelessly formless and feel like a rough draft that was never sculpted into something more meaningful. As Jack Bondurant, the youngest of the three brothers and the one most eager to prove himself, Shia LaBeouf, is both the primary focus of the film and its narrator — an unfortunate thing, since he’s also the character we least want to spend time with. Forrest is so tough he’s developed a mythology around him, that even he might believe, about being invincible — and given the ordeal he survives in this film, there might be something to that. Middle sibling Howard (Jason Clarke) is huge and half-feral, especially when he’s on one of his benders. But Jack’s been kept on the outside of the family business, allowed only to be the driver as the brothers travel the county, dispensing corn whiskey. That changes when an act of aggression by two out-of-towners gives him the opportunity to make a deal with gangster Floyd Banner (a gleeful Gary Oldman) after almost dying at his hands. At the core of Lawless is the escalating conflict between the Bondurant brothers and a corrupt Chicago lawman named Charlie Rakes (Guy Pearce) who’s coming down hard on the county to get protection money from its many moonshiners. But there are plenty of detours taken: Jack woos preacher’s daughter Bertha (Mia Wasikowska) and starts up his own stills with the disabled Cricket (Dane DeHaan). Forrest makes sparks with dancer-turned-waitress Maggie (Jessica Chastain). Lawless is really about the adventures of the Bondurants and their friends and foes during Prohibition, and the characters are so compelling it would really be enough to just spend time in their presence. Forrest in particular is a memorable contradiction: Aside from his flashes of savagery, Hardy maintains an almost grandfatherly air. Clad in cardigans and prone to muttering, he refuses to step down to anyone and yet, is utterly undone by Maggie’s arrival in his life. As Rakes, Pearce is almost too outsized for the film to contain him. With his blackened, immaculately pomaded hair, parted dramatically down the center, and his pale eyebrows, he looks like a cross between Crispin Glover and Voldemort. He wields his vague sexuality — “You’re a peach,” he croons to Jack before punching him in the face — like a threat, mincing in his flawless suit right before delivering a ruthless beating, then ceremoniously peeling off his blood-stained leather gloves. It’s a unique performance, albeit so mannered it almost rends the already accommodating fabric of the film. Factor in the prevalence of international actors in the cast and the unfocused nature of the narrative,and Lawless seems to take place in an impressionistic space rather than a historical one. It’s Charlie and Forrest that we want to see have a showdown, though it’s Jack who more often ends up in the former’s crosshairs. It’s not LaBeouf’s fault that his character is the flimsiest. The story keeps giving him foolish things to do to bring around more action, including accidentally leading the police to the family’s stills. His role as catalyst eventually becomes irritating because we don’t want the story to move along. The world that Lawless presents is so vivid and pleasing that we want to linger over the details. It’s a film that finds delicate beauty in the image of someone bleeding out in the snow, and turns a drunken, impulsive visit to church service into an overwhelming sensory experience. The appeal of Lawless is not the story it tells but rather the world that it creates. Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Why can’t heroines just be heroines anymore, instead of micromanaged personalities who may as well have the words “Role Model” tattooed across their foreheads? That’s the fate suffered by poor Kristen Stewart as the warrior princess athlete orphan Christ figure Snow White in Snow White and the Huntsman . She’s not just Joan of Arc — she’s Joan of Archetypes. Moviegoers who love Kristen Stewart — and they include a distinctive subgroup who avoid the Twilight pictures as a vampire eschews sunlight — have long been waiting for Snow White and the Huntsman , hoping to see this enormously appealing actress in a role that is, at last, worthy of her. I think Stewart has held her ground admirably enough in the Twilight pictures, particularly the profoundly crazy-ass Breaking Dawn – Part I , which gives her character something to do other than swan about moodily. (They don’t call her Bella Swan for nothing.) She also made a fine and fierce Joan Jett in Floria Sigismondi’s The Runaways . But Snow White and the Huntsman , the debut feature of Rupert Sanders , does her no favors. This Snow White is clearly designed to be a young woman of agency, not a girly-girl victim who waits around for a prince to save her. The problem is that she’s so admirable, so aggressively self-reliant, so beloved and respected by little forest animals as well as simple-minded villagers, that she barely has time to be a woman. Stewart is laced so tightly into her character that she can hardly breathe, let alone give a performance. Luckily, Charlize Theron — as the really, really wicked Queen Ravenna — is on hand to give us something to watch, and boy, does she. This is, of course, a “dark” version of the fairy tale, not a cheerful one, and as written by Evan Daugherty, John Lee Hancock and Hossein Amini, it at least half-delivers on that score. The picture opens with a quick backstory, revealing how the young and ravishing Ravenna tricked Snow’s father, a poor widowed king, into marrying her before murdering him on their marital bed. Along with her hapless twit of a brother, Finn (Sam Spruell) — the two have a quasi-incestuous, master-and-servant relationship — she takes over the kingdom, turning it into a place of darkness and death, as was her plan all along. She also locks away the orphaned Snow, who starts out as a little girl before morphing into the comely but feisty K Stew. Snow eventually manages to escape into the forest, which, under Ravenna’s rule, has become a wasteland in which tangled branches transform into writhing, hissing serpents and flowers that appear to be made of mussel shells glisten with venomous portent. Snow needs help, but just a little. And when a sturdy local huntsman shows up — he’s played by Chris Hemsworth, of Thor and The Avengers — the two reluctantly join forces, though Snow has not forgotten her first love, a duke’s son named William (Sam Claflin), even though we can all see how boring, if good-looking, he is. Snow White and the Huntsman isn’t as willfully hammy as that other recent entry in the Brothers Grimm source-material parade, Tarsem Singh’s Mirror, Mirror , and it’s not as enjoyable either, though admittedly it’s a completely different creature. Production designer Dominic Watkins sure knocked himself out here: One of the movie’s most fantastic backdrops is a fairy refuge inhabited by slippery, naked little creatures with pointed ears and oversized peepers; their homeland is also populated by stands of mushrooms, each sporting a single, blinking eye, and moss-covered turtles that provide handy landing pads for clouds of butterflies. Most magnificently, this forest is also home to a dignified-looking white hart with a set of antlers that spread as wide and as tall as the branches of an oak. (They resemble, in the good way, an over-the-top showgirl headdress.) The hart bows in respect to Snow, because it’s clear she has the power of healing, of leadership, of having fabulous hair even though she’s been fighting her way through an ugly forest for days on end. She’s also a great warrior, as we see during the picture’s lavish but oddly unexciting climactic battle sequence. She doesn’t even need a cadre of great English character actors disguised as dwarves to save her, but they show up anyway. (The gang includes Eddie Marsan, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost and Toby Jones, all shot to appear height-challenged.) Stewart moves through the picture looking noble and sadly dull, unwittingly setting the stage for the evil queen to steal her show. Theron is marvelous here, playing Ravenna as a cooler-than-cool customer who’ll do anything — include draining the blood from innocent young beauties — to stay young-looking. She works wonders with dum-dum dialogue along the lines of “My beauty…fades,” and struts around boldly, doing justice to Colleen Atwood’s luxurious glittering-metallic costumes. (At least one of these appears to be an obvious nod to the late British designer Alexander McQueen, featuring a collar of shiny black plumes that fan around the queen’s face like an ornithological lion’s mane.) Snow White and the Huntsman looks great. And yet even there, it’s often guilty of trying too hard. The picture was shot by Greig Fraser (the DP behind great-looking pictures like Bright Star and Let Me In ), and many of its images are arresting. But it also features a number of “what for?” visuals that have no real reason to exist other than that they look cool. At one point Ravenna submerges herself in a creamy-white milk bath (cool!) and emerges as a figurine coated in porcelain (wha…?). Clearly, this is one of her special magic beauty treatments, but it doesn’t make sense even in a fantastical way. And it’s emblematic of all the ways in which Snow White and the Huntsman works overtime to wow us, to make us shiver, to remind us that, hey, girls can be strong too! This Snow White is no wussy princess. But her tomboy nobility is no match for the imperious Ravenna and her succession of liquid-stainless-steel gowns and spiky medieval-gal-on-the-rag headgear. Don’t see Snow White and the Huntsman for its ho-hum empowerment message. See it for the killer clothes. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Nabbing top-10 spot on Billboard chart, winner’s first single lands second-largest digital-sales week ever for an ‘Idol’ contestant. By John Mitchell Phillip Phillips on “American Idol” Photo: Michael Becker/ FOX Despite ongoing health concerns , things just keep getting better on the professional front for “American Idol” season 11 winner Phillip Phillips . The singer’s debut single, “Home,” is making a splash on the Billboard charts, ringing up a series of history-making debuts for the FOX singing competition. With 278,000 digital downloads, “Home” is the highest-debuting song on this week’s Digital Songs chart, bowing at an impressive #2 behind Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Call Me Maybe.” That number is also large enough to give Phillips the second-best digital-sales week ever for an “Idol” contestant. Only the original “American Idol,” Kelly Clarkson, can boast a bigger digital sales week: Her smash “My Life Would Suck Without You” debuted with 280,000 downloads in January 2009. Propelled by such strong sales, Phillips enters the Billboard Hot 100 at #10, making him the first “Idol” in four years to see his victory single reach the top 10. The last was David Cook, whose 2008 “Idol” single “The Time of My Life” entered the chart at #3. The rock-solid debut of “Home” also gives Phillips the biggest sales week of any coronation song since 2003, the year SoundScan began tracking digital-download sales. Billboard notes that two other “Idols” — season two victor Ruben Studdard and runner-up Clay Aiken — have actually enjoyed larger opening frames than Phillips, though their numbers came outside the digital format. Aiken’s 2003 season-finale single “This is the Night” moved 393,000 units as a CD single in its debut frame, while Studdard’s “Flying Without Wings” shifted 286,000 discs. Related Videos ‘American Idol’ Season 11 Finale Highlights Related Photos ‘American Idol’ Season 11 Finale Show ‘American Idol’ Season 11 Finale Red Carpet
Critics agree ‘breathtaking imagery’ makes ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ the fairest adaptation of them all. By Fallon Prinzivalli Kristen Stewart in “Snow White and the Huntsman” Photo: Universal “Snow White and the Huntsman” is not your average fairy tale. The princess is quite capable of saving herself, the prince is vying for Snow’s love with the handsome Huntsman, and the Dark Forest is ever more present than any furry woodland creatures. Director Rupert Sanders created a darker version of the classic story where Snow White gears up for battle against Queen Ravenna , and the evil witch actually has an emotional reason for why she’s killing females to remain young. Kristen Stewart leads the film as the title character, with stunning performances by Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth and Sam Claflin. Stewart will be one of the many stars in attendance at the 2012 MTV Movie Awards this Sunday, June 3, where she’ll act as a presenter and compete for the Golden Popcorn in the Best Kiss and Movie of the Year categories. Until then, audiences can catch her in action beginning Friday when “Snow White” hits theaters. Read on to find out why critics are calling this the fairest adaptation of all. The Story “Astonishingly beautiful and breathtaking in its brutal imagery, ‘Snow White & the Huntsman’ is thrilling and frightening in equal measure, yet as bereft of satisfying substance as a poisoned apple. Rupert Sanders’ revisionist take on the classic Brothers Grimm fable, the first feature from the respected British commercial director, upends expectations of traditional gender roles while simultaneously embracing what a fairy tale should be. It’s dark and dangerous, vicious and violent. Yes, there are dwarves and adorable, furry woodland creatures but more often, death is a constant threat.” — Christy Lemire, Associated Press The Special Effects “Director Rupert Sanders, with his first feature, has come up with some jaw droppingly beautiful shots, almost tactile in their richness, and uses special effects to enhance that look, rather than just showing off.” — Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic Kristen Stewart “Kristen Stewart is not an obvious choice for Snow White, given her habitual expression of discomfort while striking conventional feminine poses — both in movies and on red carpets. That’s why, of course, she’s right for this Snow White, imprisoned in a tower during puberty and with no regard for her looks: She has integrity, inner beauty. ‘How do I inspire? How do I lead men?’ she asks the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), a grief-stricken drunk who teaches Snow White how to stab her opponents by using the weight of their onrushing bodies against them. She’s not a barrel of laughs, but then, unlike recent fractured fairy tales such as ‘Tangled’ and the campy ‘Mirror Mirror,’ ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ doesn’t have a single (intentional) laugh.” — David Edelstein, New York Magazine The Dwarves “For a while the movie chugs along serviceably. … But then things pick up. How? Three words, as Hemsworth’s character puts it: ‘Oh no. Dwarves.’ Yes, this version does have dwarves, and they’re played by non-dwarf actors who’ve been reduced by special effects, and at least one of those actors hasn’t been in a really big picture in some time. And they are feisty and different and delightful, and their ruminations on their loyalties to the kingdom and the young woman they acknowledge as their rightful queen help shift the picture into high gear, as does a shift from a dark forest to an enchanted wood that packs some of the movie’s most magical visuals.” — Glenn Kenny, MSN Movies The Final Word “Ravenna’s delivery of the poisoned apple to Snow White is brilliantly done, perhaps the movie’s best revisionist moment, but after that the momentum declines sharply. Snow White ‘dies’ and is revived — more mysteriously, and with less emotional impact, than in the Disney film — and then she must lead her rebel troops into battle, delivering a knockoff version of the St. Crispin’s Day inspirational speech from ‘Henry V’ … I’m inclined to conclude that ‘Snow White and the Huntsman’ is a vigorous simulacrum of classic fantasy, rather than the real thing. But keep your expectations reasonable, and that’s enough to make it one of the summer’s unexpected delights.” — Andrew O’Hehir, Salon . Check out everything we’ve got on “Snow White and the Huntsman.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘Snow White And The Huntsman’ Related Photos ‘Snow White And The Huntsman’ World Premiere
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