D’you mind if he puts his Adamantium claws around you? Twentieth Century-Fox has released the first official photo of an extremely lean and ripped Hugh Jackman in James Mangold’s film adaption of Frank Miller and Chris Claremont’s 1982 limited comic series classic, The Wolverine. The superhero’s sinewy look appears to jibe with comments that Jackman made to Empire magazine that he had Robert De Niro’s unhinged performance as Max Cady in Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of Cape Fear a s a benchmark for his performance. “You were terrified of that character from the moment he took his shirt off and you saw all the tats; you know he was this coiled spring that would rip your head off, no matter how nonchalant he acted. That’s who Wolverine is. I always thought of him as being lean, animalistic, not necessarily pretty. He has all this berserkery, and he’s terrifying when he loses all reason in blind rage.” Set in Japan, Logan/Wolverine becomes romantically involved with a woman whose hand in marriage is promised to another man.Lots of claw and swordplay follows as his refusal to give up the woman he loves leads to clashes with the woman’s father, her brothers and Silver Samurai. The film is set to be released July 23, 2013 Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Hitman Joe ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ) is confronted with his future self — in the form of a time-traveling Bruce Willis — in Rian Johnson’s Looper , the writer-director’s third feature and one of the freshest original science fiction tales in years. Before debuting the September 28 release at Fantastic Fest over the weekend, Johnson spoke with Movieline about the pre- Brick short script that gestated into Looper , the film’s dark streak and the 1970 soul ballad that serves as “the heart of the movie.” Take me back to the beginning – the idea for Looper began as a short story in your notebook around the time of Brick , right? Before I made Brick . It was a script for a short film, and it was a few years before we made Brick , during a time when we were spending all of our time looking for money to make Brick – Steve [Yedlin], my cinematographer, and I. We realized we were just driving ourselves crazy and to alleviate the pressure we decided to start making some shorts, and we made a few but this was one that I wrote but we never ended up shooting. What was the original seed of the idea that started it? It’s funny, at some point after the release I’m going to put the three-page script up on the internet but it started with the same voice over that the feature starts with. It explains the guy and his job, and when his older self shows up, it was a foot chase between the two of them across the city, then it ended when they caught up with each other. It has a similar ending to the feature which is why I don’t want to put it out too soon. I had been reading a ton of Philip K. Dick and was in a period when I had just discovered his books, so I think my brain was full of sci-fi ideas. Were you feeling super existential? I must have been going through one of those existential phases we all go through, continuously. The honest answer is it was ten years ago and I don’t exactly remember. Ten years ago I was 28. The quarter-life years or so. It’s true, my God. Now I’m going through an existential crisis, thanks a bunch! I’m sorry! One thing I like about the concept is that it’s so much about identity, our past selves, our future selves, how we see ourselves and the potential to change the future. And our relationship with this kind of character, our future self, our notion of what we’re going to turn into and our ideas of how our lives are going to go. That’s usually personified in your relationship with a mentor or parent, someone who’s indicative of a path you could take in life and whether you want to or not, that’s kind of the interesting question. I found the film to be quite romantic. Nice! And that was not something I was really expecting. That song you use, Chuck and Mac’s “Powerful Love,” is so beautiful and perfect. Isn’t it incredible? It’s such a beautiful song. I literally picked up blind, I think on vinyl on the Twinights [album]. Listening to that song just sticks, then the lyrics somehow attach themselves to the meaning of the whole thing and it ends up jamming in your head and it becomes a really obvious choice, you know? Actually, in pre-production I sent an mp3 of that song to Bruce [Willis] right when he signed on and told him this song is the heart of the movie, and he got really excited about it. I was listening to that song over and over while we were shooting it. That and a lot of Sam Cooke. A soul connection. I’m really happy that you felt that from the movie. There is a real deep heart of romance in the movie, and not just boy-girl romance but romance with a capital R. Love. Yeah – love in the sense that love can somehow fix things. I hope that that’s baked into it. As dark and as bleak as the movie can get at times, the reason I feel comfortable having it go there is I hope that it gets to a really hopeful and redemptive place at the end. Do you see Looper as dark and bleak? I think it goes to some pretty dark, bleak places and shows these characters, even the ones who are supposed to be good guys, doing some terrible things. I think it shows the dark side of everybody and gets to some spots where you wonder if it’s all going to be okay, but I hope it shows you that people can change and people can make decisions for the right reasons. I was really surprised to be crying as the credits rolled. Yes! I was trying to make you cry. That makes me really happy. My little sister cried! That’s what we were going for, that kind of rush of emotion at the end. Your films have been quite different, playing in different genres. When you decided Looper would be your next feature did you have any trepidation about tackling the time travel aspect knowing the geekosphere would scrutinize it? Well, yes – especially because I’m part of the geekosphere and I’m one of those guys. The thing is, I’ve never had time travel inconsistencies in a movie deny me the pleasure of enjoying a movie. For me those are two separate things. And that’s something I can’t understand. I can’t understand someone who says “I didn’t like that movie because that, that, and that…” For me it’s like, wow, that’s a cool movie with a well-told story that was awesome, and this didn’t make sense and that’s fun to dive into and pick apart. But every time travel movie that’s ever been made, if you really dig into it you’re going to hit bedrock where paradoxes kind of hit each other and it doesn’t make sense. The important thing is that the storytelling works and that it has a consistent set of rules that it plays fair by. But I was mostly terrified just because time travel is a tough thing to work into the fabric of a story. It’s a tough thing to put into a story and still have the whole thing tick – it can be like pouring grape jelly into a clockwork watch. It’s a messy ingredient that’s hard to tame. As your films have gotten bigger and your career has gone from indie to increasingly more mainstream audiences, how do you feel your trajectory has evolved? I guess the movies have gotten bigger, one by one – I still haven’t worked with a studio. Sony’s putting this out and have been awesome and I would love to work with a studio someday, but so far we’re doing each of these independently. I guess I’ve crept up in scale with each one, but at the end of the day they’re all motivated by the same thing; they all start with a story that I care about that I want to tell. It is fun to see how broad a canvas we can accomplish; even with the next step I think it would be really fun to do something bigger, working on a broader canvas and reaching a bigger audience. But it can never come from that place. It’s so much work to make a movie, and for me it has to get me off my butt. To get me actually writing you have to strike something inside, you have to hit a power main to get the energy. You have to strike something you care about. Have studios approached you a lot more in recent years with projects? Not so much after Brick – I got anything that was dark and had to do with high school. Not so much after Brothers Bloom . In the lead up to Looper there have been more people calling… but the thing that’s interesting to me is if this group, this little family that we have that we’ve made these movies with, can tell one of our stories on that scale – and that doesn’t just mean doing something, I think you have to be conscious of the size of the canvas that you’re working on, the amount of money you’re spending, and the audience you’re trying to reach and you have to adjust your storytelling. I think that’s part of your job as a storyteller. You mention this “family” of filmmakers and collaborators, from using Joseph Gordon-Levitt again to working with Nathan Johnson on the music. You named Noah Segan’s character after his own nickname. Even Joe’s character is named Joe. I was really lazy with these names! [Laughs] When it comes to working with this group of people again and again, how do you synthesize all this? Did you write these characters with their personalities or capabilities in mind? Their capabilities more than their personalities, their strengths. This is a unique case with Noah and Joe, but usually I don’t have any idea who’s going to play [my characters]. It’s not like when I’m writing these characters I’m picturing my friends. You’re creating a completely new character and hiring somebody to play to that and against it and shatter your expectations of what that character could be in some ways. With Joe for instance, the way that Joe loves transforming himself on film and the way that he loves disappearing into his role I knew was specifically suited to something where he was going to have to sell himself as a younger version of an older actor. And there’s just something about Noah that’s inherently likeable and I knew that’s a trait I wanted to shine through with this weird little pathetic villain character – I wanted there to be something where you could see the little boy in him who’s trying to be a cowboy. That’s the sort of thing you know from your friends that you can hopefully use to your advantage. How much do you think our world will be like the world of Looper by the year 2044? I think that our world will be much nicer. I’m an optimist, actually. I think everything’s going to get better. I think we’re evolving. Looper is in theaters Friday. Read more from Fantastic Fest! Follow Jen Yamato on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
In the world of entertainment, relationships just seem to go downhill left and right. Some end with very clear reasoning and some we’re left pondering…why?! Of course, no one owes the public any explanation but on this day, I declare that we need to know why the couples on the next pages couldn’t make it last! Click Here To Read The Rest At MadameNoire
Hollywood.TV is your source for all the latest celebrity news, gossip and videos of your favorite stars! bit.ly – Click to Subscribe! Facebook.com – Become a Fan! Twitter.com – Follow Us! Carly Rae Jepsen celebrated the release of her new album with family and friends at Bootsy Bellows in Hollywood. Carly is busy working on her tour to support KISS. Take a look at Carly on the red carpet. Hollywood.TV is one of the top celebrity news providers in the world. Since 2008, Hollywood.TV has been bringing all the latest celebrity news, interviews, gossip, and candid videos to viewers all over the world. HTV is on the job 24/7, and at all the best festivals from Sundance to Coachella, as well as on the streets every day to cover the hottest celebs in Hollywood, New York, and Miami. Hollywood.TV is currently the third most viewed reporter channel on www.youtube.com YouTube with almost 400 million views, and our footage is seen worldwide! Tune in daily for all the latest Hollywood news on www.hollywood.tv and http like us on Facebook!
Heidi Klum is a beautiful German supermodel who has been all around the world and here she is showing off her breasts topless in these naughty vacation pictures Continue reading →
Hollywood.TV is your source for all the latest celebrity news, gossip and videos of your favorite stars! bit.ly – Click to Subscribe! Facebook.com – Become a Fan! Twitter.com – Follow Us! Jennifer Aniston rocks a baby bump in a hilarious new ad for Glaceau Smartwater. The ad was produced by Aniiston. In leaked home security footage that is introduced by Ryan Seacrest we see her pregnant with triplets, already a mother of two, wears wigs, drives recklessly and exploits her help. Check out the video. Hollywood.TV is one of the top celebrity news providers in the world. Since 2008, Hollywood.TV has been bringing all the latest celebrity news, interviews, gossip, and candid videos to viewers all over the world. HTV is on the job 24/7, and at all the best festivals from Sundance to Coachella, as well as on the streets every day to cover the hottest celebs in Hollywood, New York, and Miami. Hollywood.TV is currently the third most viewed reporter channel on www.youtube.com YouTube with almost 400 million views, and our footage is seen worldwide! Tune in daily for all the latest Hollywood news on www.hollywood.tv and http like us on Facebook!
Are athletes becoming more comfortable with their sexuality ? Baltimore Ravens linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo is going “full steam ahead” after his battle with Maryland legislator C. Emmett Burns Jr., who last week wrote a letter calling on the team’s owner to silence Ayanbadejo regarding his public advocacy of gay marriage , only to back down amid a national uproar: As a pro-football player with an international platform, Ayanbadejo has been promoting LGBT equality for several years, working with Equality Maryland. In the wake of the confrontation with Burns, he sees a marked difference in the response to his advocacy from just five years ago, noting how he used to experience jabs from teammates and some fans. “In years past it would be just random people, who would write ignorant things [in response to my advocacy],” he said. “I haven’t had a single negative comment from any of my teammates or anybody around the NFL [after this episode], whereas in the past it was a completely different story. The fans — people all over the country, all over the world — have just invigorated me to fight even harder for marriage equality. I’ve been energized from the outpouring from all over the world. Maybe around 20 people — players, people in the building, whether it be a secretary or a janitor, or even coaches — have come up to me and given me a high-five.” “Whether it was women’s rights or interracial marriage or civil rights, whatever it was, it’s all led to where we are today,” he continued. “And now it’s gay rights. And it’s all the same issue even though they’re all different things. They’re all predicated on equality and treating people fairly. So I just see it from that standpoint. I see it a little bit broader than everybody else, but there’s always been someone that’s been discriminated against. And we’re just trying to tackle one issue at a time. Right now it’s the time for gay rights and it’s time for them to be treated equally and for everybody be treated fairly, in the name of love.” Life occasionally hands people a platform from which to speak, and it’s telling to note how he’s chosen to use the platform he has earned. He decided to stand up for other people, when, let’s face it, he didn’t have to do that. Not one person would have criticized him for staying silent about gay civil rights. But he went there, anyway. With straight football players like him stepping up the way they are, we’re afraid they’re in the process of killing the gay guy’s capacity to be cynical. Source NOH8/Instagram
A black Islamic flag is flying over the U.S. embassy in Tunisia after it was stormed by a mob of protesters today – as anger at an American-made anti-Islam film resulted in chaos across the world. Symbols of America and U.S. embassies have been targeted around the globe in a fourth day of protest after Tuesday’s deadly raid on the American consulate in Libya. In Tunisian capital Tunis, a mob overran the U.S. embassy compound, scaling the walls and setting fire to cars before tearing down the Stars and Stripes and replacing it with the symbol of Islam. It is not thought any U.S. staff were in the embassy in Tunis, where an American school has also been set on fire. A large cloud of black smoke rose around the U.S. embassy as stone-throwing protesters and police waged a pitched battle. Thousands of demonstrators massed outside the embassy and several were seen climbing the outer wall of the embassy grounds and raising a flag on which was written the Muslim profession of faith. The protesters chanted ‘Obama, Obama, we are all Osamas’. Police responded by firing tear gas, live rounds killing two protesters and wounding 28. A group of several dozen protesters briefly managed to enter the embassy compound and set fire to cars in an embassy parking lot. They were pushed back outside by police and special forces who continued to arrive on the scene. It was the worst incident in clashes around the world – with angry protesters ransacking a KFC and Hardee’s restaurant in Lebanon, police firing on protesters in Yemen, and unrest in Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Turkey and Jerusalem. One protester was killed in Lebanon and twenty five wounded by police who opened fire as they cracked down on the mob who turned their anger on the American fast food chains. A KFC in the northern city of Tripoli was set alight after the mob – many wearing face masks- ransacked the interior. In Sudan, the American embassy was also attacked and smoke could be seen rising from the compound. Officials said a mob had been expelled from the compound with one protester killed. A spokesman said protesters had been ejected from the embassay in Sudan, adding ‘they didn’t get far’. Elsewhere, police have fired on protesters outside the US embassy in Yemen today as a group of 2,000 attempted to march on the compound. It also emerged that Libya had closed its air space over Benghazi airport temporarily because of heavy anti-aircraft fire by Islamists aiming at U.S. reconnaissance drones flying over the city, after President Barack Obama vowed to bring the ambassador’s killers to justice. It adds to unrest in Bangladesh where tens of thousands have taken to the streets, and India – where there are widespread protests in Muslim Kashmir. youtube
The Master , the new film from Paul Thomas Anderson , is the story of a spiritual duel — the battle for a soul — though only one of the participants perceives it as such. Lancaster Dodd ( Philip Seymour Hoffman ), the mystic of the title, is the leader of a young movement not unlike what evolved into a certain real life one well entrenched in the entertainment industry. It’s 1950, and he finds a stowaway on his ship, a drunk vagabond who claims to be an able-bodied seaman and who asks for work. The man’s name is Freddie Quell ( Joaquin Phoenix ), he fought in the war, and he’s not mentally stable, either because of his experiences in battle or because stability was just never meant for him. Lancaster, who is almost never referred to by his name but instead is called, simply, “master,” is intrigued by Freddie, likes him (to the bewilderment of others in his camp) and desires to work with him — wants to shape him using the force of will and ability to find the vulnerability in people that he’s slowly honing as his cause grows. Freddie is both terribly vulnerable and the ultimate challenge, because he’s a man with no ability to conform at will, one for whom all emotion and impulses run hot and right at the surface. If Freddie could be won over, changed and molded into someone new by Lancaster’s lectures and lessons, his “processing,” then the cause could be something real, and not just new age blatherings about past lives to wealthy socialites. What makes The Master such a singular experience, as dense as a mille-feuille, is that it is not Lancaster’s story but Freddie’s, and told as such, in layers that are sensorially rich but that do not always lead easily from one to another. Freddie exists in the moment, ruled by his temper, his libido, or urges he would be unable to pin down or articulate. At one point he wanders away for reasons unclear — restlessness, maybe — and years slip by without his seeming to register them. He loves but has left behind a girl, Doris (Madisen Beaty), though he doesn’t know why, longs to be with her and understands that he’s hurt her but doesn’t return. He has a good job in a department store until with no provocation one day he picks a fight with a client. He is a force of chaos, though it’s not malevolent. We see things as Freddie does, which is often the way a child does: Not fully understood, attention wandering after a while. We have more understanding than him, but it is almost exclusively through his eyes that we perceive the world, and we’re left to assemble the pieces we’re given into a whole that will never be fully coherent. There are only two scenes, by my count, in which Freddie is not present. Both show the ways in which other people, including Lancaster’s steely wife Peggy ( Amy Adams ), attempt to manipulate Lancaster the way he manages others, with rewards and slippery words. Lancaster is a man who is all performance, even, one would guess, when alone, while Freddie can only be himself. The Master is built around two towering, career-high feats of acting. As Lancaster, Philip Seymour Hoffman is both authoritative and ridiculous, a series of shells with nothing inside. He’s not yet perfected the religion he’s building, and is still in the process of convincing himself of his sway over others, marveling in the way that he can tell people things and they will, frequently, be believed. We see the power in him when he processes Freddie in an early scene, demanding from the younger man that he not blink as he offers up answers about his past and himself, pulling from him capitulation even as Freddie is hopelessly moved by the intensity of his attention. Few things, we understand from what we’ve seen already, before Lancaster ever arrived on the scene, leave a mark on Freddie, but this moment does. This moment, he’ll remember. As Freddie, Joaquin Phoenix is entirely transformed — it’s a magnificent performance of remarkable physicality. “Naughty boy,” Lancaster calls him, reprovingly. “Silly animal.” Freddie is both of these things, a primitive, tending to swing his loose arms like an ape, his shoulders slumped, muttering out of one side of his mouth like he was crumpled into a ball once and never fully straightened out. He’s half-feral in a way that can be frightening, especially in a scene in which he loses control in a prison cell, raging, destroying everything within reach and hurting himself while Lancaster poses, still, in the cell next to him. But that coiled energy, that unrestrained carnality, is also appealing, and women are drawn to him (though they may not stay that way) — lucky for him, because baldly propositioning them is his main approach. With very fine cinematography by Mihai Malaimare Jr. and a textured, spiky score by Jonny Greenwood that chases the film along as much as the dialogue, The Master is a more opaque sibling to There Will Be Blood , a story that, like that earlier one, feels like an abstract American creation myth, a celluloid koan to be turned over in the mind. A final encounter between Lancaster and Freddie is sparked by a dream that signals that the former does have a hook in our strange protagonist, if not the ownership he desires, and that sends Freddie over the churning blue seas, images of which punctuate the film, to find his teacher. Lancaster, grown in power and yet more hollow than ever, offers up what may be the key to the film to his wayward ward: “If you figure out a way to live without a master, any master, be sure to let the rest of us know, for you would be the first in the history of the world.” In Freddie, terrible and free, is an image of a life unbounded by rules and unmarked by submission to any structure, whether it be an abstract figure or the one ensconced in his self-created institute, promising a cure for what ails you. Read more on The Master . Follow Alison Willmore on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
After initially refusing to go along with Evelyn Lozada’s efforts to divorce him, former NFL star Chad Johnson is finally accepting that his marriage is over. He, too, has filed paperwork, citing the union as “irretrievably broken.” Johnson filed the papers in a Florida court yesterday, in response to Evelyn Lozada’s filing back on August 14, days after he allegedly head-butted her . In Chad’s divorce filing , he notes the the couple has a prenup that he believes should be enforced, especially the part about who pays for the lawyers. Evelyn has requested that Chad foot the bill for her legal fees, but the prenup states that both of them will pay their own if they were to split, Ocho claims. The divorce has not been finalized yet, but Evelyn, who gave every indication that she was never going to reconcile and is ready to move on, is thrilled. Well, as thrilled as one can be after a condom receipt from your cheating spouse results in the end of a 41-day marriage and stitches in your head. Johnson was charged with battery yesterday in Broward County, Fla. He entered a plea of not guilty this morning, and is currently unemployed. [Photo: WENN.com]
