Happy Wednesday! Also in this midweek edition of The Broadsheet: Meet the burglars inspired by The Town... Steve Guttenberg still hoping for Police Academy reboot... Channing Tatum may wrestle with Foxcatcher... Make Facebook enemies with Johnny English... and more.
Kudos to AFI Fest for offering three important qualities next month, when the annual Los Angeles film festival runs November 3-10. For starters, in addition to fest opener J. Edgar, they're programming Shame, one of my fall awards season must-sees and the potentially life-changing opportunity to see Michael Fassbender bare it all. (I mean emotionally, of course. Ahem.). Secondly, it's held right here in Los Angeles -- no pesky traveling to distant, exotic, champagne-sipping lands like France and Italy! Because that must suck. But most importantly, the entire AFI Fest is free. Complimentary. Gratis. Hit the jump to see the recently-announced line-up of must see films you'll want to snag a ticket to.
The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) is the film industry's encyclopedia of data for filmmakers and actors, providing a wealth of information about the movies, past and present, and the people who make them (or aspire to). But was the IMDb in the wrong when it published the legal age of an actress/IMDb Pro user -- and did that act warrant the $1 million lawsuit she's now leveling at the website?
The sunny Hamptons International Film Festival played host to veteran stars and up-and-comers alike over the weekend, from Matthew Broderick and Alec Baldwin (who shared an eventful onstage chat at the fest) to Susan Sarandon, Alexander Skarsgard, and youngsters Emily Browning, Anton Yelchin, and former Verge designee Ezra Miller. Hit the jump for Movieline's red carpet gallery from the fest.
We've seen the goggles, the cycle-straddling, and the cat ears, but do any of us have an expertly informed inkling as to how well Anne Hathaway will don Catwoman's iconic suit in The Dark Knight Rises? Sister site Hollywood Life went to the source to learn if Hathaway's got what it takes: Michelle Pfeiffer, who purred her way through 1992's Batman Returns as the dominatrix-like Selina Kyle.
Since last week's Tree of Life giveaway event was such a success, we're staging another 10-word review contest -- this time, in celebration of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the Johnny Depp/Penélope Cruz pirate adventure epic that gets it home release this week. So find your black pearl pen, channel your inner Captain Jack Sparrow, mix your best mermaid tear cocktail and click ahead for details. [UPDATE: The contest is now closed! Thank you to everyone who participated. We will now sort through your submissions and notify you of a winner shortly.]
So you've always dreamed of owning an electric DeLorean DMC-12 -- the same design seen in the Back to the Future trilogy, only fueled by electric energy so that when you do finally fashion it into a time machine, it won't emit harmful tailpipe pollutants as you travel into the future to score an almanac containing the outcomes of 50 years worth of sporting events and return to present day to use the almanac for financial gain, Biff-style. Right? Well, good news! The DeLorean Motor Company has unveiled an electric prototype of the car that they plan to make available in 2013. Details ahead.
The Occupy Wall Street protest movement may be loosely organized, but protesters in New York and in other cities around the country are firmly united in opposition to one faceless entity: Corporations. So how would the denizens of Zuccotti Park feel about a $250 million Hollywood studio film about a billionaire playboy hero coming to town to potentially use their protests as a backdrop?
You guys: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 is exactly one month away, which means two things: Twi-hards, rest up those vocal chords, and everyone else, stock up on earplugs. Because come November 18, the shrieking will reach a fever pitch across the land. Summit sent out a batch of new images today to stoke the fan fire, which includes looks at the wedding, the happy couple, a dreamy Taylor Lautner glamour shot ("Abduction who? Let's get back to Jacob Black," his smoldering gaze screams), and some serious lumberjack skills.
Remakes often suck -- but when they're total stylistic upheavals of the source material, I'm more optimistic. Would you see a whacked-out, space-age remake of a classic period piece like Little Dorrit? I would! Or better yet, this weekend's ridiculous, steampunk The Three Musketeers in 3-D? It puts the "rich" in Richelieu and the "dumbass" in Dumas. I dig it! Ahead, we investigate five other Victorian novels worth revisiting in a fulgent 3-D experience. Put on your special glasses, Heathcliff.
Zombies are primetime draws in 2011, dear friends, and that means Zombieland is coming back as a TV series. Hooray? Also in the Broadsheet: Shia LaBeouf gets into a street fight on camera (yikes!) and eyes a "giant" new film role (awww), the Octomom becomes an actress, and a Scrabble competitor plays dirty.
Remember this summer's Hangover Part II? The Todd Phillips sequel about American pals who indulge in blacked-out Bangkok escapades involving kidnapped Buddhist monks, a chain-smoking monkey, Toyota car chases, kathoey prostitutes, Russian mobsters and Mike Tyson singing an obscure '80s song from Murray Head? Well, now someone is claiming that the critically disappointing blockbuster was based on his own life, and he's suing the filmmakers.
David Fincher on his search for The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's Lisbeth Salander: "Scarlett Johansson was great. It was a great audition, I'm telling you. But the thing with Scarlett is, you can't wait for her to take her clothes off... Salander should be like E.T. If you put E.T. dolls out before anyone had seen the movie, they would say, 'What is this little squishy thing?' Well, you know what? When he hides under the table and he grabs the Reese's Pieces, you love him! It has to be like that." He eventually cast the "great weirdo" Rooney Mara for his "pervy" Americanized adaptation; read the full profile here. [Vogue]
The first batch of reviews are in for The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, Steven Spielberg's long-awaited big-budget adventure that attempts to revive the charming Hergé character (first introduced in 1929) with the most advanced motion capture technology money can buy. So what did the earlybird critics have to say?
Today's October 17, the birthday of rapper/sometime actor Eminem! And do you know who else knows it's Eminem's birthday? Cloris Leachman. Who is on Twitter. Tweeting to Eminem. (We heart you, Cloris.)
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