Unless you live in a major market and want to sample Joaquin Phoenix's coprophilic hip-hop narcissist fantasia (no, that's not a recommendation), it might be worth just forgoing this weekend at the movies. Don't take my word for it, though; see the sad pickings after the jump, with one (negotiable) exception.
Those who insist there's no reason to see movies in the theater anymore haven't been to the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin, TX. They program the best in mainstream and cult cinema, host unique special events, and actually enforce the no-cell phone rule. And they serve beer during the film. Now, founder and CEO Tim League has announced that the company is jumping into distribution with Chris Morris' comedy about jihadists, Four Lions, and also discussed plans to build theaters in New York and Los Angeles.
Peter Fonda recently said that he wrote the script for Easy Rider without the aid of drugs between 1:30 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. in a low-rent Toronto motel. Since most of the film industry is currently in this very city, it seems like the perfect time to see if lightning will strike twice. Instead of sleeping tonight, I challenge all festival-goers to take a break from the blog updates and crowded screenings, hole up in the cheapest motel you can find and write your own script, Fonda-style. Imagine how much more you'd have to show for your trip! First person to change the direction of cinema for the next decade wins. The prize? Your entire personal life exposed by Peter Biskind.
· Last month, I attended the enjoyably unconventional Nevada City Film Festival, which takes normal film fest tropes and reinvents them for an alternative audience. There's no better example of that than the video below, where fest attendees Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim twist the typical fest interview by vamping wildly for ten solid minutes about the company names on the step-and-repeat behind them (squint, and the clip could have come straight from their cult series Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!).
Maybe Tyler Perry got tired of having to constantly say, "Precious: Based on the Novel Push By Sapphire"? Whatever the reason, Movieline has confirmed that Lionsgate shortened the title of Perry's award season ensembler For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf to just For Colored Girls (the new title just got its debut in these character posters). First 5nal Destination goes bland, now this! [Yahoo]
If the following tabloid story is true, it stands to be the best Jay Leno automotive distress tale of the day (yes, even better than the report that Leno's 1907 White Steam Car broke down in front of an Encino Chili's during Labor Day weekend and the Tonight Show host lovingly willed his car back to health with the support of generous anti-Coco passersby). Do you have your grain of salt at the ready? Let's begin.
Happy birthday, Bella Swan! Summit Entertainment will re-release The Twilight Saga: Eclipse to over 1,100 theaters tomorrow to "celebrate Bella's birthday." Though which one? Her actual birthday is September 13, but her vampire birthday is September 10. Oh wait, she's fictional and this is just some ploy to push the film over $300 million in domestic grosses? Never mind. [Deadline]
Gleeks may be excited for their darling Kurt to date the new jock played by Chord Overstreet, but Chris Colfer is hesitant. "I feel like it's not going to happen because all the girls are going to fall in love with [Overstreet] and they're not going to want to see [him with Kurt]. I don't want to be the guy girls hate. I'm the gay guy the girls love," the Emmy-nominated actor told EW. "I don't want the letters that say, 'Kurt needs to get off our man. Stop kissing our boyfriend'...I don't want to know how Kristen Stewart feels. I don't want to be the Bella of the Glee world." [EW]
· Would James Franco tell The Advocate if he were gay or bisexual? "Sure, I'd tell you if I was," the Howl actor claims in the new issue. "I guess the reason I wouldn't is because I'd be worried that it would hurt my career. I suppose that's the reason one wouldn't do that, right? But no, that wouldn't be something that would deter me." Click through for a closer look at the cover and more Buzz Break.
In today's edition of the New York Times, film critic A.O. Scott surveys the wreckage of a summer of bad movies (my eyes still burn from Eat, Pray, Love) and wonders if "any of the movies surfacing this fall [will] provoke the kind of conversation that television series routinely do, breaking beyond niches into something larger." Well, hopefully! But in his lament of the lameness of the film industry, isn't Scott giving the television industry a bit too much credit?
Susan Boyle haters can thank Lou Reed this morning for causing the Britain's Got Talent sensation to flee the states. TMZ reports that Boyle flew into Los Angeles yesterday to sing "Perfect Day" on America's Got Talent but the performance was 86-ed at the last minute when Velvet Underground lead singer Lou Reed refused to give her permission to perform the song because he "is not a fan." Upon learning the news, Boyle promptly fled the set in tears, returned to LAX and hopped on a plane back to London. [TMZ]
Greetings from Toronto! Movieline's Canadian HQ is up and running for this year's Toronto International Film Festival, that annual ritual of 300 films and just about as many brutally tough viewing decisions over the course of a week. (It helps that our fine, discriminating critics Stephanie Zacahrek and Michelle Orange are checking in soon as well.) But if festgoers have tough decisions, imagine being a distributor faced with dozens of buzzy titles and a checkbook to pick up only one or two. You've got to make it count -- and here's where they're likeliest to fight to the death to do so.
If only she had a 36th take! According to the ever-reliable Daily Mail, Woody Allen has taken the necessary steps to cutting French first lady -- and terrible baguette holder -- Carla Bruni out of Midnight in Paris by having French actress Lea Seydoux re-film Bruni's scenes. Seydoux was added to the cast back in August, however, so perhaps she was just spotted shooting another baguette scene, and not a replacement one. Either way, the biggest winner here is the baguette industry. [Daily Mail]
Get your grains of salt out for this one. According to RadarOnline.com, Lindsay Lohan is in talks to appear on The Oprah Winfrey Show. "Things are heating up in a good way," an anonymous source told Radar. "Definitely some good conversations. We're crossing our fingers it works out for Oprah's last season." Yes, because if Oprah doesn't get an interview with Lindsay Lohan during her final season, the last 24 years will have been for naught. [Radar]
Haha, Hollywood... you guys. Always with the fake-franchise speculation, hype and innuendo, the inflation of a screenwriter's pitch to a full-blown screenplay, the complete and total fabrication of cast and director negotiations, attachments and commitments... too funny. Especially Paramount's Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters, starring Jeremy Renner and Noomi Rapace and co-produced by Adam McKay. Hilarious. Wait, what?
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