Also in Wednesday afternoon’s round up of news briefs, Rob Reiner may join Martin Scorsese’s latest project and Zooey Deschanel has a round about kind thing to say about the internet. And what does Piranhaconda director have to say to a critic who panned his latest? It isn’t pretty… Lee Daniels The Paperboy Hits in October Oscar-nominated director Lee Daniels’ latest The Paperboy will open theatrically October 5th distributor Millennium Entertainment said. The film stars Matthew McConaughey, Zac Efron, David Oyelowo, Macy Gray, John Cusack and Nicole Kidman. The Cannes debut erotic thriller is set in 1969 revolving around a young man who returns to his small Florida hometown to help his reporter brother uncover the truth about a man on death row, who might have been wrongly convicted. In the process, he falls for the convict’s lover. Around the ‘net… Rob Reiner in Consideration for Wolf of Wall Street Reiner is in negotiations to join Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street . He’s play Max, the father of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Jordan Belfort. he film is based on the memoir by Belfort with the script being written by Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter, Deadline reports . Zooey Deschanel on the Internet: It Will Get More Positive The actress told THR that “There’s way too much negativity online. But it will eventually change.” But Veep ‘s Julia Louis-Dreyfus countered, “It will get worse.” Ryan Phillippe to Make Directorial Debut with Shreveport The actor will make his debut behind the camera with the indie thriller which he’ll also star in, playing a fading star who is suddenly kidnapped and tortured while making a low budget film, Variety reports . Piranhaconda ‘s Director Has Words for a Critic Jim Wynorski’s latest Piranhaconda – yep, a cross between an anaconda and a piranha – had debuted on the SyFy Channel already, but one negative review on Dread Central set off a vicious retort from the filmmaker. It involved an ‘F’ and a You’ and then some more choice words, Indiewire reports .
In first interview since announcing she’s transgender, Against Me! singer talks with MTV News about painful past, new life and future of her band. By James Montgomery Laura Jane Grace Photo: This is the story of a woman named Laura Jane Grace, who was born in the body of a boy named Tommy Gabel, and spent the next 31 years of her life trying to get out. It starts a long time ago, back when Gabel was 4 or 5 years old and had just watched a televised performance by Madonna. It was the moment Laura first let herself be known, when the boy who spent skinned-kneed summers dressed as a cowboy or Superman realized she was not actually a boy at all. And not surprisingly, given her strict upbringing on military bases across the South (Gabel’s father is a retired Army major), she didn’t understand how to process this rather pertinent bit of new information. All she knew was that, for the first time in her life, she felt somehow different. “When you’re younger, you don’t necessarily get it, [but] I just completely identified with Madonna,” Laura admits. “Watching ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ and seeing Mia Farrow with a boy’s haircut, was another moment I remember thinking, ‘That’s me, that’s what I’m going to grow up to be, that’s the kind of woman that I’ll be.’ ” Of course, over the next 20-something years, a life like that seemed impossible. Gabel’s parents got divorced, and she moved to Florida with her mom. As a teen, she lived with a secret shame, experimenting first with cross-dressing — then eventually graduating to drugs and alcohol — as a way of coping with what is clinically known as gender dysphoria, one’s discontent with the sex they were assigned at birth and the gender roles associated with that sex. But back then, without the Internet and only films like “The Silence of the Lambs” to serve as reference points, Gabel felt like she was some kind of pervert or a freak. And the kids she went to school with didn’t do much to dissuade those feelings, picking on her and calling her a “f—-t.” She hated the way she looked, hated the way she felt and, above all else, hated herself. It was, needless to say, the low point of her story. About this time, Gabel also discovered punk rock, mostly as a way of fighting back. She’d begin writing songs in her bedroom, using the name Against Me!, which she now admits was a nod to her gender issues, and at 18, she moved to Gainesville, Florida, to form a band. Over the next decade, she’d get married (and divorced), live a life of anarcho-punk austerity, tour the world with Against Me! and even get signed to a major label. She’d begin to pepper AM! songs with references to her secret, and at points, she’d even swear off cross-dressing and do her best to bury her transgender feelings. But no matter how much she tried, she just couldn’t do it. “You don’t understand what’s happening to you … though, as you grow older, you realize this isn’t something that goes away,” she says. “When you’re younger, you have these moments where you’re like, ‘OK, I’m going to choose to be male. I will be male. This is it. I’m going to take all my women’s clothes that I have secretly hidden away under my bed, and I’m going to put ’em in a garbage bag and I’m going to throw them in a dumpster, and that’s it. I swear off this behavior for the rest of my life.’ “And then you get to that point where you’re like, ‘This isn’t something that’s going away,’ ” she continues. “And you start hearing so many other people’s stories, and you realize, ‘That’s me. This is what I’m going through.’ And it becomes so apparent that you’d be a fool to continue to deny it.” For Laura, the end of the denial began in 2009, when, newly married and with a daughter on the way, she began to realize that she could no longer continue living two lives. “I couldn’t exist as a woman in hotel rooms by myself and then come home and pretend to be someone else,” she now admits. “I’d end up killing myself.” She decided to finally reveal her secret. Over the next year, she first came out as transgender to her wife, Heather, then her Against Me! bandmates, and finally, the world, via a much-publicized feature in Rolling Stone magazine. And in doing so, she not only became the most prominent artist to live openly as transgender , but for the first time in her life, she felt unburdened. And free. “I was really, honestly excited. When I first told my wife, immediately it was just like this huge weight being lifted off my shoulders, and subsequently every other person that I’ve told, that feeling was more and more there,” Laura says. “I’ve been completely blown away by the majority of people’s reactions. … They’ve been more than respectful and more than supportive, and it’s been, for me, completely humbling.” In the month since the Rolling Stone story broke, Laura Jane Grace has begun hormone treatments and returned to the stage with Against Me! And before their show at New York’s Terminal 5 — where they’d be joined by Joan Jett for a cover of the Replacements’ “Androgynous” — Laura and the band sat down with MTV News for their first on-camera interview. For an hour, they spoke openly and honestly about the state of the group and the fallout from Laura’s revelation. There were jokes about personal pronouns and applying makeup in the back of the tour bus, touching moments of brotherly (and sisterly) love — “She can take care of herself,” beefy guitarist James Bowman laughed, when asked whether the band felt the need to protect Laura — and a general camaraderie that, for an act with as tumultuous a history as AM!’s, was positively revelatory. In every conceivable way, they seem like a new band, one as free as Laura herself. “We didn’t want to make it melodramatic. … It was kind of simple in a way,” bassist Andrew Seward says. “It sounds cheesy, but it’s not: You just want your friend to be happy. When this came out, I think the bottom line for all of us was just ‘be happy.’ ” “I’ve been a jerk over the past few years. I’ve been an absolute ass in so many ways, just from, you have this thing you’re dealing with that you don’t know how to process it, and it bears on you,” Laura adds. “And it comes out in so many different ways. … You express your anger at what is going on, and you take it out on your closest friends. And now, I’ve obviously apologized.” And it’s about the only time she’s apologized for anything. Laura admits that her new life hasn’t been accepted by everyone — “It’s completely ended my relationship with my father,” she says — but after 31 years spent wrestling with the supposed shame and stigma of gender dysphoria, she’s finally found happiness in honesty and the supreme freedom of living life on her terms. And she’s never going back now. In a lot of ways, Laura Jane Grace’s story is only just beginning — and we’re honored to be able to tell the next chapter. Of course, Laura isn’t too concerned with any of that. She doesn’t want to be mythologized and isn’t interested in being seen as a transgender icon. Instead, she just wants to enjoy living a life unburdened. And really, she’s earned that. “I never thought any of this would be possible. It was just something that, conceptually, I could never realize. But … my life improves every single day. I try to make a step every single day, no matter how big or how small,” Laura says. “It feels like I’m in control of my life, and I’m in control of my person, and that’s empowering. Saying to someone ‘I’m a transsexual’ is the most empowering thing I’ve ever felt in my whole life.” Related Videos Laura Jane Grace: Her Life, Her Words Related Artists Against Me!
Tom Cruise rescues rock and roll musical that ‘wins no prizes for originality,’ critics say. By Kara Warner Julianne Hough in “Rock of Ages” Photo: It’s relatively safe to say “Rock of Ages” has built-in appeal: It’s based on a hit Broadway musical of the same name and features a slew of A-list actors singing and dancing along to some of the biggest hits of the 1980s. Despite all those charms, including the top billing of action star turned rock star Tom Cruise, the whimsical musical is not quite a surefire hit among critics and sits at a less-than-fresh rating over at Rotten Tomatoes . Sing along as we take a walk through the “Rock of Ages” reviews. The Story ” ‘Rock of Ages,’ a rags-to-riches rock ‘n’ roll musical set mostly in a music club on Sunset Strip, wins no prizes for originality. A lot of it is zesty entertainment, with some energetic musical numbers; several big names (Tom Cruise, Russell Brand, Alec Baldwin) prove they can sing well enough to play the Strip if they lose the day job. The two leads are Diego Boneta, as a bartender in the Strip’s hottest club, and Julianne Hough, as a naive kid just off the bus from the Midwest. They’re both gifted singers and join the others in doing covers of 1980s rock classics. Of course they also fall in love. Of course they have heartfelt conversations while standing behind the ‘Hollywood’ sign. Of course they break up because of a tragic misunderstanding. Of course their mistake is repaired and (spoiler!) they’re back together at the end. Has ever a romance in a musical been otherwise?” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times The Music and Singing “It looks like Disneyland and sounds, well, like a bad Broadway musical, with all the power belting and jazz-hand choreography that implies. To put it another way, there’s way too much Journey on the soundtrack, and Foreigner. There’s also an REO Speedwagon ditty, a few from Twisted Sister, Def Leppard and Poison, and at least two hits that were released after 1987 (‘More Than Words’ and ‘I Remember You’). All the songs are sung, mostly without shame or distinction, by the actors themselves, who slide into the warbling as if into a conversation. A grizzled, bewigged Mr. Baldwin enunciates through his songs, in the Rex Harrison mold, to play a rock survivor, Dennis Dupree, who runs the Bourbon with his sidekick, Lonny (Mr. Brand). They make their stale buddy routine and romance amusing and, as with the rest of the adults, make the movie bearable. A whispering and writhing Mr. Cruise makes it watchable.” — Manohla Dargis, New York Times The Cruise Factor “The real reason to see ‘Rock of Ages,’ though, is Tom Cruise. He doesn’t sing much, and the one big onstage number he’s given — shredding Def Leppard’s ‘Pour Some Sugar on Me’ under a rain of shaken-up beer from the audience — relies heavily on postproduction and backup singing, probably to mask his vocal shortcomings. But especially in his scenes with [Paul] Giamatti and Malin Akerman (as a Rolling Stone critic who’s the only one with the guts to call Stacee on his ersatz-Marlon Brando B.S.), Cruise goes to a deep, dark, almost deliberately repellent place I’m not sure he’s ever been before (in ‘Magnolia,’ maybe, and in a comic mode as the profane studio head Les Grossman in ‘Tropic Thunder’). The isolation and paranoia brought on by extreme fame is something Tom Cruise clearly understands from the inside out — and what we know, or think we know, about the actor’s personal eccentricities can’t help but color our understanding of Stacee as well. When Cruise and Akerman have lurid (but still PG-13) sex atop an air-hockey table while singing Foreigner’s ‘I Want to Know What Love Is,’ Cruise’s expressions of erotic anguish are like something out of Steve McQueen’s sex-addiction drama ‘Shame,’ with a hint of tragic drag queen thrown in. Cruise’s portrait of the rock star as empty-eyed nihilist doesn’t really belong in this gaudy pop trinket of a movie — it’s both too outsized and too inward — but that’s precisely what makes for its fascination. ‘Rock of Ages’ is only recommended for audiences with a taste for highly processed cheese, but it did leave me hopeful that the next decade may see the rise of Weird Tom Cruise.” — Dana Stevens, Slate The Final Word ” ‘Rock of Ages’ is an effulgent celebration of fakeness. It isn’t trying to be real; it’s trying to be faker than any fake thing has ever been before. Compared to this fake musical set in a fake version of the past that spins a ridiculously fake narrative of pop-culture history, ‘Mamma Mia’ (the last jukebox musical to be vilified by critics and embraced by the public) is pretty much a mumblecore movie. ‘Rock of Ages’ is so remarkably fake it’s almost ur-fake or meta-fake; you can watch the globs of trans fats congealing on its preternaturally bright surfaces as it cools. This movie could hardly seem more weirdly artificial if it had been jointly hatched by David Lynch and John Waters, and raised in a lab on a steady diet of Foreigner hits and original Broadway-cast recordings. I’m not claiming this movie is good for you, Lord knows. It’s a little bit like eating a Happy Meal at 4:30 in the morning after a long night of Jagermeister and nitrous oxide. But not to put too fine a point on it, if you ain’t lookin’ for nothin’ but a good time, why should you resist? Some people who claim to understand the public appetite smell an expensive flop here, and that well may be. But I’m here to tell you that this movie is almost too weird to be believed, and that if you share even a fraction of my taste for perversity you should check it out.” — Andrew O’Hehir, Salon Check out everything we’ve got on “Rock of Ages.” For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com . Related Videos MTV Rough Cut: ‘Rock Of Ages’
‘The only way that we can respond is make great records,’ Dream tells MTV News of Pusha/ Lil Wayne beef. By Rob Markman, with reporting by James Lacsina The-Dream Photo: The-Dream just wants to kill the competition — with his success. When asked if Team Pusha T would indulge in a rap beef and aim a dis record at Lil Wayne, he downplayed the importance of a response record and stressed the need for a good record. “The only way that we can respond is make great records, and nobody is gonna beat me at that,” The-Dream told MTV News when we caught up with him in Hollywood last week. The-Dream helped Pusha put together his latest single “Exodus 23:1,” the Notorious B.I.G.-inspired track that many believe is aimed at Lil Wayne. Weezy himself took offense and on May 25, just days after Push’s track hit the Net, released “Ghoulish” in response. “F— Pusha T and everybody that love ’em,” Tunechi rapped at the top of the Swizz Beatz-produced record. The-Dream, who has been working with Pusha on his upcoming solo album, said that “Exodus 23:1” wasn’t meant to be a YMCMB dis. “I had actually no idea that anybody would jump out the window [thinking] that personally … it was about them,” he said. “It kinda took me and the clique by surprise.” On the track, the Clipse rapper spits, “You signed to one n—a, that’s signed to another n—a, that’s signed to three n—as — now that’s bad luck.” Many fans thought those lyrics were targeted at Wayne, Drake and their YMCMB squad. Not the case, The-Dream said. The singer/songwriter told us he isn’t down with subliminal disses, remembering a lesson that his grandfather once taught him: ” ‘If you’re talking to somebody, you speak to them or you just walk up to them and slap them.’ I think beef is so ’96. It’s like, what’s the point? “I don’t think anybody is actually that good enough to direct anything at anyone,” he continued. “You can’t take that much time, there’s too much money in the words that either one of us have — me or Pusha — to direct directly at anyone.” Related Artists The-Dream Pusha T
Also in Thursday’s quick round up of film news, ARC Entertainment is bringing Fat Kid to the States, Meryl Streep gives her two cents on big studio flops, and audiences just are not heading to theaters frequently like they used to. Fat Kid to Hit North America ARC Entertainment has picked up North American rights to director Matthew Lillard’s Fat Kid Rules the World . Starring Jacob Wysocki ( Terri ), Matt O’Leary ( Natural Selection ) and Billy Campbell ( The Killing ), the film won the Narrative Feature Audience Award at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival. The film revolves around two guys who form a strong friendship after one saves the other from suicide. Around the ‘net… Meryl Streep Has Words for Studio Tentpole Failures The actress had advice for studio execs behind big budget box office flops like Battleship and John Carter : “Listen to the ladies.” THR reports . Waiting for the Avengers Directors Cut Following in the footsteps of other high stakes box office titles, Joss Whedon is rumored to be reinstating footage into a three-hour version of the blockbuster that has taken in billions worldwide, The Guardian reports . Only 3% Rate Moviegoing as Frequent Form of Entertainment Only two years ago, 28% of U.S. consumers said “cinema/movies” were a frequent source of entertainment, according to PR outfit Edelman which released the statistics, Deadline reports . LA Film Festival Lures Woody Allen to Opener The director is, not publicly anyway, a frequent visitor in Los Angeles, but LAFF managed to get the filmmaker to its opening night. THR talks to the festival’s head programmer on how they made it happen. Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Also in Thursday’s quick round up of film news, ARC Entertainment is bringing Fat Kid to the States, Meryl Streep gives her two cents on big studio flops, and audiences just are not heading to theaters frequently like they used to. Fat Kid to Hit North America ARC Entertainment has picked up North American rights to director Matthew Lillard’s Fat Kid Rules the World . Starring Jacob Wysocki ( Terri ), Matt O’Leary ( Natural Selection ) and Billy Campbell ( The Killing ), the film won the Narrative Feature Audience Award at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival. The film revolves around two guys who form a strong friendship after one saves the other from suicide. Around the ‘net… Meryl Streep Has Words for Studio Tentpole Failures The actress had advice for studio execs behind big budget box office flops like Battleship and John Carter : “Listen to the ladies.” THR reports . Waiting for the Avengers Directors Cut Following in the footsteps of other high stakes box office titles, Joss Whedon is rumored to be reinstating footage into a three-hour version of the blockbuster that has taken in billions worldwide, The Guardian reports . Only 3% Rate Moviegoing as Frequent Form of Entertainment Only two years ago, 28% of U.S. consumers said “cinema/movies” were a frequent source of entertainment, according to PR outfit Edelman which released the statistics, Deadline reports . LA Film Festival Lures Woody Allen to Opener The director is, not publicly anyway, a frequent visitor in Los Angeles, but LAFF managed to get the filmmaker to its opening night. THR talks to the festival’s head programmer on how they made it happen. Follow Brian Brooks on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
When author, screenwriter and semi-official chronicler of LA’s nightlife scene Bret Easton Ellis speaks, Hollywood listens. Or at least Lindsay Lohan does. Ellis has cast Lohan alongside real-life porn star James Deen in his new movie The Canyons , starring Deen as Christian, a ” handsome, fit power player and major manipulator ” who ” enjoys setting up three-ways and filming them .” Lindsay will be playing Tara, a former model who ” has sold her pride for the material comforts [Christian] can provide, ” and while sadly the movie is not an out-and-out porno, hopefully acting alongside the guy known as “the Ryan Gosling of porn” will compel Lindsay to expose her peaks and valleys. Ellis leaked the news over Twitter yesterday, tweeting ” Shooting THE CANYONS starring James Deen and Lindsay Lohan: July 9-31 in L.A. Could not have dreamed of a better cast. Lindsay nailed it… ” Let’s hope she continues to nail it when the cameras are rolling, if you know what we mean. And high off of the success of his latest announcement, Ellis has now started recruiting via Twitter for the movie version of 50 Shades of Grey despite not having any official connection to the project. So far he’s volunteered himself (naturally) as screenwriter and proposed a motley crew that includes Emmy Rossum , Lena Dunham , Scarlett Johansson and Kristen Stewart as potential stars for the torrid S&M fantasy tale. So in other words, if you want to appoint yourself the porn king of Hollywood, all you need is a Twitter account and a lot of chutzpah. Writing the novels that Less Than Zero , American Psycho , The Rules of Attraction , and The Informers (see them here at MrSkin.com) were based on probably helps too. But we’re banking on the chutzpah. To Twitter!
Timothy Poe has come clean. Sort of. The America’s Got Talent contestant who claimed during his Monday night audition that he suffered brain damage as the result of an explosion in Afghanistan – and originally stood by the story in the face of mounting criticism – now admits he had his facts wrong. “It may not have happened exactly like I said it did,” Poe told The New York Post . “I really do not remember a lot of things since the accident.” Poe, an engaged father of two, still says a “blast” went off near his head (and provided the newspaper with documents to prove it) during combat, but admits he boasted about medals he never earned and submitted a photo of another soldier that he attempted to pass off as himself. Another lie? Or misremembering , as Poe would like us to believe? That he never sang until he left the Middle East. “I was in a band,” Poe now says. “But it was before the accident. And at the time of AGT , when the judges asked, before I could even think about answering, my words had already came out.” Friends say Poe is suicidal and members of his family have been threatened. America’s Got Talent viewers will see him during Las Vegas auditions next week and to them, as well as all citizens, he has the following to say: “I would like to take the time to tell the the American people how truly sorry I am that they had to endure the incomplete facts. I understand how they feel.”
Kanye West turns 35 years old today, and we all know how the rapper will celebrate: By marrying Kim Kardashian ! Okay, probably not. But the artist’s relationship with the busty (seriously, look at the following photo!) reality star has dominated all coverage of West for weeks now. Is this really the same guy who used to stand out for his scandalous quotes and catchy beats? And now he’s been reduced to desperate cliche of dating Kim Kardashian for publicity? So very sad… Other celebrities celebrating birthdays today include Keenen Ivory Wayans (54), Joan Rivers (79) and Jerry Stiller (85). But of course it all comes back to Kanye, the man who once ranted that he is treated like Hitler . Send him your birthday wishes now and click through the following photo montage in his honor…
Facebook’s botched IPO might be the least of its problems. Surveys say that while it remains the undisputed king of social media, a significant number of users are bored and tuning out the site these days. According to a new poll by Reuters and research firm Ipsos, roughly a third of Facebook users, and climbing, are feeling increasingly “meh” about it. The poll of 1,000 Americans also showed that 80 percent of Facebook users have never purchased a product or service because of an ad on there. Whatever advertising techniques companies are currently using to grab your cash simply isn’t working, in other words … not good news for Zuck. Unsurprisingly, the survey found that users between the ages of 18-34 were the most active, while just 29 percent of people over 55 are on it. People who spend a great deal of time on the network are more frequently becoming victims of what the researchers call “Facebook fatigue.” This leads them to spend less and less time checking in with friends and browsing the profiles of their peers, instead turning their attention elsewhere. What do you think? Have your Facebook habits changed? Do you use other social media platforms more now, and if so, which? And why? NOTE : You can FOLLOW THG on Twitter and Google+ as well as Facebook for your celebrity gossip and news needs, however you like them!
