Looks like James Franco is starting 2011 like he ended 2010: With a loaded schedule of unexpected projects that he's hoping to get off the ground. According to Roger Friedman, Franco is planning to direct an adaptation of William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying from his own screenplay. Additionally, he's also interested in adapting Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, which you'll recall was one of the movies Ridley Scott was never going to direct. Expect Franco to squeeze these in when he isn't hosting the Oscars, starring on General Hospital, going to class and doing press for Your Highness. [Showbiz411]
As our very own Dixon Gaines so accurately put it on Sunday, True Grit is "the compromise movie of households worldwide," which is great news for those households -- and Brooks Barnes -- since the latest from the Coen Brothers is actually quite impressive. That is, if you can understand the dialogue, which is spoken through more grunts, lisps and slurs than your local pub at closing time. Or The King's Speech. Ahead, Movieline attempts to discover just which True Grit cast member had the most arresting vocal tic.
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It's still early in the new year, which means that there is plenty of time to correct those horrible habits that plagued you in 2010. Goodbye Twinkie diet! So long animal hoarding compulsion! Farewell, cigarettes and embarrassing Newport withdrawal-related crimes! Now, if only you could amend your horrible television-watching habits.
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As mentioned in Broadsheet, Quentin Tarantino released his of 20 favorite films from 2010 over the weekend, and Toy Story 3 grabbed the top honor. It was followed by The Social Network, Animal Kingdom, I Am Love and Tangled. So, eclectic. But how does QT's list compare to famed author Stephen King's top-ten? Let's investigate.
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It might be a good time to stock up on canned goods, friends. Hours before the ball dropped on New Year's Eve, residents of Beebe, Arkansas were shocked when more than 2,000 dead birds fell from the sky. "It was horrible," said Beebe resident Melissa Weatherly, obviously. "You could not even get down the road without running over hundreds. It was that bad." Though maybe not as bad as finding 100,000 dead fish washed ashore just 125 miles away.
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Also in this Monday edition of The Broadsheet: Quentin Tarantino names his best films of 2010... Mila Kunis now officially home alone... the 24 movie hits a snag... and more ahead.
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The very talented British actor Pete Postlethwaite has passed away at 64 "after a lengthy illness." Postlethwaite was nominated for an Oscar in 1994 for his heart-wrenching performance in In the Name of the Father, in which he totally held his own against Daniel Day-Lewis. The actor continued to work in recent months, though he was being treated for cancer. Even if he was never a marquee name, Postlethwaite did amazing work in a wide array of films including The Usual Suspects, Romeo + Juliet and this year's The Town and Inception. After working with him in The Lost World: Jurassic Park and Amistad, Steven Spielberg described Postlethwaite as "the best actor in the world." Click after the jump for a short montage of screen shots featuring the actor, which serves as a reminder of how many movies benefited from his talent.
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Welcome to 2011, where we finally transition "trailer announcements" and teasers with no actual footage to "trailer intros." In the case of this presumably leaked look at Amber Heard in John Carpenter's The Ward, this term literally means the first half of the trailer. Coming soon: The Movieline 10-second Verdict. But yes, the first look at The Ward offers several mysteries to ponder including: "Why did Heard set her house on fire?" and "Who/what is that creepy shadow in the community shower?"
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According to TMZ, after a rager of a New Year's Eve party, David Arquette has checked himself into rehab. It's for alcohol addiction and "other issues," not drugs, if that makes a difference to you. I'm sure he'll call into Howard Stern's show at some point and overshare all the details with us shortly. [TMZ]
Talking with the Los Angeles Times, William H. Macy explained his new Showtime series, Shameless, and his character Frank Gallagher, a drunk layabout who is nonetheless charming. Macy casually reveals that he used to babysit a young Joan Cusack back in his Chicago theater days, and Cusack now plays his love interest. If it's anything like the British series, their sex scenes will be extraordinarily explicit (pegging ahoy!), but knowing that Macy used to watch Cusack in her pigtails and ribbons phase adds an extra layer of creepiness. [LAT]
Once again, a family of Fockers has pushed boozy lawman Rooster Cogburn to second place, as alleged "comedy" Little Fockers took the box office crown this weekend. Meanwhile, Jeff Bridges repped silver and bronze with True Grit and Tron: Legacy respectively. And no one go looking for Jack Black -- his nearly universally-reviled Gulliver's Travels plummeted to eighth place. Your weekend receipts are here.
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The Christmas season may be over, but erstwhile Iceman Val Kilmer still has some giving to do. US Weekly is reporting that the one-time Batman owes the federal government nearly $500,000 in unpaid taxes. The feds have put a lien on Kilmer's New Mexico ranch, which he has been struggling to sell since 2009 -- with a starting price of $33 million, Val's slashed the price to an affordable $18.5 million. Combined with Kilmer's last brush with the gub'mint -- wherein he had to apologize for saying Santa Fe is filled with drunks and calling his county the "homicide capital of the Southwest" -- perhaps we'll see him at a Tea Party rally sometime soon?[USWeekly]
Every month at Movieline, we collect the best interviews, smartest features, and most compelling reviews we've produced, and curate them in one easy-to-use table of contents called the Virtual Newsstand, which pays tribute to our print magazine history. Here's the Virtual Newsstand for December 2010.
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Here at Movieline HQ we're ready to shuffle off until 2011 -- don't worry, we'll avoid those lame, "See you next year!" jokes; well maybe not Julie, but the rest of us -- but before working our way toward a fairly intense champagne hangover, it seemed like a good time to compile all of our fabulously specific year-end coverage into one clickable place. Ahead, find the 29 ways Movieline decided to say goodbye to 2010.
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· To close out this wondrous week, let's settle back with a video collection of Samuel L. Jackson's best moments in yelling the word "motherf*cker" on screen. Bring a hanky -- for the blood that will come shooting out of your head. [YouTube]
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