Black Dynamite pimp rolls into theaters this week, being a hugely affectionate homage to -- and parody of -- the blaxploitation era in which coats were fur and floor-length, foxy mamas supplied the lovin' between supplyin' the cash by turning tricks, and The Man and his corrupt cop minions were always on a collision course with a kung-fu ass-whuppin'. Scott Sanders and Michael Jai White's pitch-perfect recreation of such mid-1970s adventures draws on many sources, from Superfly to The Mack, but it also owes a sizeable debt to the first movie vehicle for Rudy Ray Moore, 1975's Dolemite.
more »
The film world was rocked (OK, it was more of a gentle nudge, or a playful chuck on the underside of the chin) when the LA Times revealed that The Fantastic Mr. Fox helmer Wes Anderson was directing the movie, via e-mail, from his apartment in Paris while Fox was being animated at London's Three Mills Studios, an arrangement that seems to have caused some friction between Anderson and his collaborators, who shared -- on the record, no less -- terms of endearment for Anderson like "a little sociopathic" and "O.C.D." (That he insisted the animators eschew some of their more modern techniques in favor of ones that would give the film a more meticulously hand-crafted look seems not to have endeared him to his crew, either.) Movieline has now obtained (read: fastidiously imagined) some of Anderson's e-correspondence with London set, which we are happy to share with our readers so they can decide for themselves if the director was some kind of detached, absentee lord, or merely someone who had better things to do than sit in a chair as people moved puppet appendages by fractions of an inch thousands of times a day. Enjoy.
more »
Exhausted the classic canon? Fed up with the current cinema of remakes, reboots and reimaginings? This week The Cold Case talks to Paul Giamatti, exhuming a recent, underappreciated gem by one of America's most charismatic acting talents.
Finding unexpected fame as a comic-book artist, railing against the evils of merlot, tangling with a backyard mermaid or trying to retrieve his soul from Russian gangsters: Paul Giamatti has blessed a disparate bunch of movies with his human hurrumph persona. But what unites these roles (and many of his others) is that familiar beaten-down frustration. Which is why it was such fun to see him do a 180-degree turn to play a snarlingly confident and utterly cold-blooded villain 2007's Shoot 'Em Up.
more »
It's hard to believe we're already nine weeks deep into the third season of Mad Men. In the words of some filthy hippie at whom Don Draper would sneer while taking a meaningful drag off his cigarette, "What a long, strange trip it's been." Hit the jump for this week's Power Rankings, which feature the (not so) triumphant return of Sal, and the conspicuous (if temporary) disappearance of several of our most beloved characters:
more »
Over the past couple of days, there has been much gnashing of teeth, rending of clothes, and hurried stashing of product-placement cash into filthy mattresses following the Federal Trade Commission's announcement that it will seek to regulate the grift-happy Wild West that is the Internet by requiring the disclosure of any payments or free products shoveled into the gaping maws of the eminently corruptible greed-machines known as "bloggers" in exchange for coverage. In the spirit of compliance, Movieline is taking a few moments to make some public disclosures about the various freebies, enticements, and Carl's Jr. bags full of wadded-up Ben Franklins that drive our daily coverage of Hollywood; by offering some transparency in this area, we hope we can keep the FTC from battering down the door to our headquarters, kicking over the teetering stacks of gold-plated DVDs that litter the office, and, while pressing the cold muzzle of an assault rifle into the back of our necks, demanding to know if we gave Jennifer's Body a positive review because Fox sent over a pair of promotional pasties like the ones Megan Fox wore in her semi-nude scene. (Disclosure: it didn't hurt. We're wearing them right now. It's like we never had nipples! Fun!) Below, find a breakdown of any network/studio/publicist-related funny-business that may have influenced our opinions:
more »
After a couple of weeks in which Mad Men's plotting raced along like two drug-addled hippie grifters atop a John Deere Lawn Tractor, shredding toes and cold-cocking disillusioned ad men with reckless abandon, the show took a step back and offered the kind of slower, more deliberate episode that prompts comparison to "an entertaining wax museum" by some critics. Whatever. You can't hobble smarmy Brits and pop reds with horny hitchhikers every week, you know? Below, the Power Rankings for a quieter, gentler installment of Mad Men:
more »
This is how you know the world is ending: John Cusack's brazenly flouting the hands-free phone law, practically begging to be ticketed, just so that he can have this manic exchange with his (seemingly) estranged family:
"California is going down!"
more »
The list of those in the Hollywood community who are rallying around Oscar-winning fugitive rapist Roman Polanski is growing, with new voices being added to the chorus seemingly by the minute. Now, emboldened by their peers' courage in speaking up in defense of the man who pleaded guilty to drugging and raping a 13-year-old in 1978, but who also made cinematic masterpieces Chinatown and The Pianist, several of filmdom's most beloved movie characters are now making their voices heard in support of the gifted auteur/criminal. Their pleas are below.
more »
In the 48-year history of Movieline's Mad Men Power Rankings, never have we been confronted with a week with so many plot twists, power plays and sweaty go-arounds in need of evaluation. Indeed, last night was a sleepless one, spent alternately staring at the ceiling and tossing side to side, strangled by bedsheets rendered as menacing as draft-dodging, pill-proffering hitchhikers by our restless mind, as we tried to make sense of all that transpired on Sunday. After the jump, the results of our struggle:
more »
Are you an obsessive fan of premium cable programming with a flair for fashion, but have always been bothered that you've had no tasteful way to express your devotion to your favorite pay-TV shows, other than a clumsily realized Cafe Press t-shirt tribute bearing a grainy image of Vinnie Chase or Hank Moody doggy-styling a promiscuous, starstruck co-ed? Then take heart! Because HBO, looking to further exploit the runaway success of True Blood, its campy look at backwoods Louisiana's most fashion-forward undead tastemakers, has just announced the launch of a premium line of True-inspired jewelry that will make you the envy of all the kids at the Hot Topic who've just blown their entire allowance on knockoff Sookie short-shorts. To assist you with the shopping spree you're undoubtedly about to embark on, Movieline's True Blood recapper extraordinaire Seth Abramovitch and Editor at Large Mark Lisanti are taking some time to walk you through the collection, piece by exquisite piece.
more »
Exhausted the classic canon? Fed up with the current cinema of remakes, reboots and reimaginings? This week The Cold Case talks to Mary Harron about her 2005 film The Notorious Bettie Page -- the director's woefully underappreciated, terrifically acted antidote to the standard-issue Hollywood biopic.
When it opens with a police sting, moody black-and-white cinematography, the oppressive atmosphere of a 1950s Capitol Hill witch hunt and David Strathhairn's grave face, you could be forgiven for thinking you'd stumbled upon an extra-special cut of Good Night, and Good Luck. Rather, this is Mary Harron's The Notorious Bettie Page, which, while it was made the same year and tackled similar themes, garnered far less attention than George Clooney's six-times-Oscar nominated critical darling. Not to take anything away from the brilliant-if-thundering Good Night, but Bettie Page is a kinder, gentler examination of what happens when someone's caught in the collision of freedom of speech and the censorial (if perhaps well-intentioned) mid-century mindset.
more »
Having fended off Hollywood's lascivious advances for five full decades, Barbie has finally collapsed onto its couch with her legs spread, exhausted from years of being chased around a desk by horny, pantsless studio-executive suitors promising to make her a big movie star. Variety reports that Universal is the beneficiary of the Mattel icon's weary willingness to surrender her big-screen virtue to the highest bidder, announcing today they've reached a deal for a live-action film based on America's favorite plastic bundle of unhealthy body-image issues.
more »
There's an old saying that's been passed down from generation to generation in the secretarial pool, from wizened, office-terrorizing battleax to doe-eyed steno girl: "One day you're sitting on the top of the world, and the next day you're having your guts ripped out by a secretary brandishing a chainsaw." Hmm...no, that's not quite how it goes. But we're sure it'll come to us! In the meantime, your Mad Men Power Rankings for Week Six, after the jump:
more »
For the last two nights, Movieline has its donned its disposable poncho and taken a front-row seat (well, front-of-couch seat) for The Jay Leno Show, NBC's bold attempt to smash the bloated watermelon of the traditional primetime programming model with the Gallagherian mallet of low-cost comedy, hoping that Leno's rapidly aging audience will tune in each night at 10 p.m. to watch their favorite middlebrow funnyman spray the wet, delicious guts of too-expensive dramas about horny doctors all over their television screens. While many pundits decided to weigh in on this brave new world in American broadcast television after a single viewing of the show, we decided it was necessary to double-down on the commitment before offering some thoughts about the dangerous experiment that soon will render primetime a scorched, Apocalyptic hellscape patrolled by highlighter-wielding cannibals in search of smoldering piles of typo-riddled, small-town newspapers to defile. Having survived the ordeal, here's a collection of helpful questions and answers about the 10 p.m. hour's most buzzed about harbinger of programming doom.
more »
It was an evening of new arrivals, anxious dads-to-be, and comely elementary school teachers begging to be the next notch in a certain ad man's fedora band. It was, to be sure, a good evening. So join us, if you will, for another installment of our Mad Men Power Rankings:
more »
