It's safe to say American Idol's five best female contestants outshine and outclass all of Tuesday night's dudes. I don't mean to downplay the fetal finesse of Aaron Kelly or the Kodiak growls of Lee Dewyze, but the ladies have a lock on season nine. Their rankings -- and my confusion with the judges' love of a certain wizardress -- after the jump:
Let's just put this out there: If The Hurt Locker fails to win Best Picture this Sunday, it will amount to nothing less than the ultimate, most spectacular come-from-ahead flame job in the history of the Academy Awards. Strike that -- in the history of awards, period. It would be like William Faulkner choking away the 1949 Nobel Prize to Mickey Spillane, or Dakota Fanning defeating Rosario Dawson for a 2008 NAACP Image Award. Don't snicker! It could have happened -- but it didn't, precisely there are some honors that the cosmos just isn't ready to cede to the freaks and flukes of everyday human life. But if his latest ill-advised, leaked e-mail tells us anything, Oscar-barred Hurt Locker producer Nicolas Chartier is challenging the cosmos to a duel. And damn if this guy isn't determined to win. Or lose, depending on your perspective.
more »
When you think "Oscar week," you think "Sarah Palin," don't you? Admit it, you do -- or, at least, you will, because for some reason, the erstwhile V.P. candidate cut a swath through an Academy Awards gifting suite yesterday in Los Angeles, a practice usually reserved only for actual Oscar nominees or, failing that, AnnaLynne McCord and Bai Ling. "They were like locusts," one vendor told E!, irate that the gifting suite had to open two hours early for Palin's entourage. "She showed up with like 20 people, and they immediately swarmed the place taking everything!" And what did that "everything" comprise?
Yes, this link is going to send you to playboy.com, but it's OK. There are no breasts, and more importantly, there is no John Mayer. Instead, you'll find an article called "The Man in the Bomb Suit," Mark Boal's original piece for Playboy which spurred, to some extent, his screenplay for The Hurt Locker. Read it, and evaluate Jeffrey Sarver's charges for yourself. [Playboy]
The joy of cruising the movie margins is that one thing leads to another. So, a few years back, after I'd suffered through the 1952 Poverty Row comedy Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla for my bad-movie book, I couldn't help but get Googling to find out what happened to its leads, Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, whose comic act in the movie aped Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis to the very limits of copyright infringement. Turned out that Sammy did not much moviewise after that (he died last year), but Duke burned bright in the last years of his life. Mitchell's first film as writer-director was 1974's Massacre Mafia Style, aka The Executioner. While it didn't make him a household name or set the box office aflame, in 1975 Mitchell set about making a second flick, then called Kiss The Ring, later given the awesome title of Gone With The Pope. One viewing of the trailer on YouTube (embedded after the jump) had my jaw on the floor.
more »
There's something about Chelsea Handler that brings out the creepy old man in Jay Leno. During one of the only memorable episodes of the Jay Leno Show, the host led Handler onto a vibrating bed where the pair shared an intimate book read. Last night, Leno upped the sleaze ante by taking her on a Bachelor-worthy date and inviting her to be a member of the mile-high club. Click through for that clip, as well as the other highlights you missed last night while exhaustively bidding on that Danny Zuko-inspired Alec Baldwin portrait.
Would Up In The Air still be a Best Picture contender if Jason Reitman hadn't cut its original, dream-sequence ending featuring George Clooney in a spacesuit? We'll never know. But if you're curious, it shows up on the DVD and Blu-ray, out March 9. What we learned from that deleted scene -- plus several others included in the release -- is that Reitman smartly pruned his film down to only the material that stayed true to his characters. Always open to sharing the secrets of his craft, Reitman's commentary track is not surprisingly in-depth, and bridges the gaps between the Walter Kirn-penned book the film is based on, the deleted scenes, and the final cut.
more »
NBC, always so good at making decisions! See if you can follow along in this new, instant classic example: The network had Kathy Griffin guest-starring on Law and Order: SVU, and the episode had already been attracting attention for its same-sex smooch between Griffin and Hargitay. NBC stoked that buzz by releasing an advance clip of the kiss, which snagged its fair share of headlines but also a bit of grumbling about Hargitay's last line in the scene, which felt vaguely homophobic.
So what did the network then do when the episode aired last night?
Time now for an introduction: Carly Steel is the newest addition to the Movieline family. A veteran of E! and TV Guide network, Carly will be Movieline's on-camera correspondent at Hollywood awards shows, premieres, parties and anything else you can slap a red carpet in front of. Last night, she attended the Angeleno magazine Pre-Oscar party, where she chatted with British actress Nathalie Press -- nominated for an Indie Spirit Award for her work in 50 Dead Men Walking-- as well as costar Rose McGowan, who offered some awards night tips, spoke of her own paralyzing red carpet fright, and admitted to a bad habit of breaking into architecturally significant homes.
more »
Busy as we've all been with the Oscars and Olympics and film festivals and digging out of Lost and what feels a zillion other pop-culture phenomena, a tiny, nagging vacuum in America's soul has never really left the fore at Movieline HQ. Which may explain why it felt so exhilarating, even miraculous this morning to wake up to the news that an old friend is coming back -- and she hasn't changed a bit.
more »
While in Los Angeles to make her stand-up debut on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Sarah Palin is shopping a reality series around town with the help of super-producer Mark Burnett. The project, which Palin and Burnett pitched to three major networks already this week, is being described by some executives as "Planet Earth meets Alaska meets the Palins." The series would include footage of the former governor of Alaska's family. [EW]
· This morning, a veteran sitcom star returns to the network mix. Debra Messing, last seen in USA's The Starter Wife, has been cast as the lead in ABC's comedy pilot Wright vs. Wrong. The half-hour project, written by Stephnie Weir (MadTV) centers on a driven conservative pundit who tries to maintain her public persona despite facing her own vulnerabilities. Messing will also executive produce the project. [THR]
NBC finds the next black president, Shit My Dad Says casts another star, and more TV Bites after the jump.
Breaking! James Cameron would be totally fine with Sacha Baron Cohen dressing up like a pregnant N'avi at the Oscars and angrily accusing him of knocking "her" up! Because, like, ROFL! "If they want to poke fun at Avatar Sunday, that's OK by me," Cameron told a party reporter Wednesday. "The Oscars are a celebration of movies... even the gaffes and out-of-bounds stuff are all part of the fun." How else would Cameron react after the fact? "I'll be damned if some blue dude in drag is gonna pull some Dada-gibberish prank on me in front of a worldwide TV audience, get the eff outta here"? Anyway, as of this writing there will still be no Sachatar. Sorry. [E! via PopEater]
· The forthcoming genius that is The Smurfs got even genius-er Wednesday when Neil Patrick Harris was announced as its topliner. The bad news: Harris will not voice one of the title characters, but rather play their live-action counterpart in a story that remains generally under wraps. Or maybe that's the good news? Yes, probably the good news. Anyway, director Raja Gosnell and his crew remain hard at work in pre-production; shooting begins in April. [Deadline]
Rachel McAdams does the muse thing for Woody Allen, Robert De Niro chases Bradley Cooper, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
· Long before Michael Emerson landed his role on Lost, he made grim isolation scintillating in another way -- by taking part in a video about handling prisoners. Just add an introduction by Pierre Chang, and you've got your very own unsettling Dharma video! [YouTube]
FILM NEWS 