The foreign trades are full of all kinds of fun, weird surprises. Take this news that emerged Thursday from the Mumbai Film Festival: The city's Enlighten Film Society acquired Indian DVD rights for Lars von Trier's Antichrist. That would add the grim, gory, explicitly sexual film to Enlighten's catalog of world-cinema classics including The Rules of the Game, Bicycle Thieves, 2001: A Space Odyssey and more. There might be a slight hold-up in bringing it home, though: "We are currently talking to the sensor [sic] board for a clearance for the film; based on their response we will release the movie on DVD in India." Memo to India: If the entrails-devouring fox looks or sounds anything like this, then you've definitely got the censored version. [Business of Cinema]
Have you ever spent restless Sundays nights considering how you too could seduce department store heiresses and your daughter's elementary school teacher if only you owned the right suit? If you have, consider your luck changed because Brooks Brothers is selling 250 Don Draper-inspired sharkskin suits through the season finale on November 8. Mad Men costume designer Jane Bryant created the updated ensemble, which features a two button jacket with narrow lapels, diagonal pockets, side vents and retails for $998. Or hold out for the Jon Hamm Varsity Collection -- coming to an Abercrombie & Fitch near you! [AP]
You and I may lose hours of work every week addictively trolling the rankings and comments at places like Rotten Tomatoes or Metacritic, but one obsessive decided to make the latter site his job for the sake of science. The experiment: to find the most consistent critical voices working today (or at least posting to Metacritic), and the stars who benefit the most from those voices. Culled from reviews and films over the last decade, the results are certainly... interesting.
more »
· The inevitable live-action/CGI adaptation of Yogi Bear took a major step forward Thursday as Dan Aykroyd and Justin Timberlake closed in on deals to voice the title character and his sidekick Boo-Boo. Anna Faris is also on the hook to play a documentary filmmaker who chronicles their natural habitat in Jellystone Park, thus offering a much-needed, more authentic ursine counterpoint to the grocery-shopping grizzlies recently promised by Shawn Levy's own Berenstain Bears. [Variety]
Bradley Cooper goes a drug too far, J.J. Abrams considers returning to pilot school, and more Hollywood Ink after the jump.
more »
Admit it. When you saw last night that GE heiress Kathy Geiss was auditioning for TGS -- the sketch comedy show-within-a-show of 30 Rock -- you knew that the ugly, Mark-Wahlberg-worshiping duckling would bust out with a note-perfect rendition of the Susan Boyle standard "I Dreamed a Dream." You know why you knew that? Because Movieline commenter Andrea Zuckerman-Vasquez totally called it back on June 1. Strap in, Kathy. A makeover and attendant nervous breakdown are surely inevitable.
Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or nonstarting at the movies. This week, Disney delivers the holidays about a month early, the latest Oscar-ready thoroughbreds trot out of the stable, and Richard Kelly once again gets down to baffling business.
more »
· Look, you'd make that face too if you were being attacked by Elisabeth Hasselbeck on The View today. Sir Ian McKellen stopped by to promote his new miniseries The Prisoner, and Hasselbeck pointlessly lured him into a conversation about swine flu vaccinations and British health care. After McKellen's gracious explanation that the UK system is run not by the government but by doctors and hospitals, a snippy Hasselbeck replied, "Yeah, that's what they'd like you to believe, I'm sure." Well, who pissed in her bangers and mash this morning? The clip, after the jump:
more »
Dane Cook may be rich and famous, but no one will let him just enjoy it. Everywhere you look, there's someone trying to chip away at the comedian, whether it's a talk show host trying to coax him into a confession of vehicular manslaughter, or a fellow comic like David Cross who delights in taking potshots at him from the cool kids' table. At least, that's what we're inferring from Cook's interview with Vulture, where Cook levels a not-so-veiled counterattack at someone who just happens to share Cross's IMDb credits:
more »
Congratulations, awards bloggers! You made it happen! (Or maybe you were just flattered into thinking you made it happen, and this was in the works for some time now.) In any case, Jeff Bridges Oscar-shot Crazy Heart is getting an accelerated, qualifying release date: December, 16 2009. "As he struggles down the road of redemption," the press release goes, "Bad learns the hard way just how tough life can be on one man's crazy heart." In the meantime, you can get your Bridges fix this weekend in The Men Who Stare at Goats, in which he plays a different sort of long-haired burnout.
It wouldn't be a 30 Rock season if Alec Baldwin didn't have a much-awarded actress come in to play his new girlfriend, and E! reports that Julianne Moore (soon to be Oscar-nominated for A Single Man) is this year's model. The two have started filming scenes together in New York, and between takes, we'd like to imagine Baldwin's is using Moore as a sounding board for both potential Oscar banter and Huffington Post blog subjects. Let's hope she has a big German following! [E!]
Comedy Central adds to its brand of satirical news shows with a half-hour series based on The Onion Sports Network online video series. This means the show will parody teams, coaches, managers, and general sports fanaticism in a way not already accomplished by actual sports coverage. Does anyone else fear Craig Kilborn's ability to regroup and overhaul this operation? If a phone call to Lizz Winstead is placed in a timely fashion, I worry that we could see a "Five Sports Questions" interrogation from dethroned Emperor Kilby ASAP. Bring back Beth Litteford too, at least. [THR]
This morning, Nikki Finke rattled the cages at CBS by breaking news that Oprah Winfrey will leave her syndicated talk show in 2011, taking her program to the long-awaited Oprah Winfrey Network, which Finke alleges will launch the same year. The move is surprising for everyone including CBS Television Distribution, the company that syndicates Oprah's show and had not heard of her 2011 plans, and Roland Emmerich, who realized that this is the single apocalyptic event he overlooked in the making of 2012.
more »
· Here's the official one-sheet for A Single Man, which makes us want to spend exorbitant sums on retro-chic eyewear and flesh-colored silk cushions more than see the movie.
· Norwegian lamp manufacturers Luxo have settled amicably with Pixar, who packaged Up DVDs with a toy Luxo Jr. lamp. The defamation lawsuit filed by obese people on hover scooters is still pending, however.
· CBS reduced its order of Numbers, from 22 to 16. That's a reduction of ... carry the four ... six episodes! (No wonder we never watch that show.)
· Birthday boy Matthew McConaughey looks back with gratitude at his 40 years on the planet, calls himself a "late bloomer," still uses MySpace.
· Two words: MORE FRANCO. (With laser-cut logo!)
Golden Girls star Rue McClanahan, best known for her Emmy Award-winning role as Southern belle Blanche Devereaux, was hospitalized this week for heart bypass surgery. The actress was scheduled to appear at Golden: A Gala Tribute on November 14, an event in her honor that has since been canceled. McClanahan released the following statement from her New York hospital room: "My darlings, I'm just devastated that I am going to have to miss my own tribute at the Castro Theatre. Unfortunately, my doctor has laid down the law, and I'm currently having some maintenance on the old ticker. Trust me, I'd much rather be in San Francisco having fun and being adored by all of you." Get well soon, Rue. [Popeater]
Roland Emmerich, the director/producer behind next week's apocalyptic 2012, is planning to extend his disaster franchise into television. Despite popular belief that there is no way to follow up on a White House-crushing tidal wave, Emmerich told Entertainment Weekly that there is still "plenty to do in a TV show." Along with Mark Gordon of Grey's Anatomy, Emmerich wants the show to focus on the resettling of earth, picking up with "a group of people who survived but not on the boats ... maybe they were on a piece of land that was spared or one that became an island in the process of the crust moving." Emmerich is reportedly in talks with ABC. [EW]
