"I realize that Beatty was not some exploited female starlet. He did no small amount of exploitation of his own reputation, not to mention women’s affections and his position of power. But the scandal of Beatty’s image is that a man who really just wanted to make beautiful, incisive films, get worthwhile candidates in office, and have a lot of sex along the way is remembered almost exclusively for the last of those three. Sex becomes Beatty." Also: Reds is not "tedious," how dare you, etc. etc. [The Hairpin]
After breathless reports that the actress was "rushed to the hospital" with a head injury sustained on the set of her upcoming film The Hive, Halle Berry's publicist has confirmed that not only will her Oscar-winning client live, but that Berry was released and expects to return to work as planned. Now you know! Glad to hear it. We now return to our regular scheduled Bat-programming.
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Director Andrew Stanton may have made one of the biggest flops in a generation, but you know what else he made? The Oscar-winning blockbuster Finding Nemo. Thus today's big news from Mike Fleming at Deadline: "I’m told he’s now officially come aboard the Finding Nemo sequel and has a concept the studio loves. [...] As for Disney coming through with another live-action project, I’m hearing that nothing is firm but that the studio is working on it. It looks like the studio is ready to give Stanton a mulligan on John Carter. Stanton, who has played a big role in many of Pixar’s hits going back to Toy Story, has an opportunity to put a big flop behind him." Terrific! All's well that ends in a $200 million write-down well. [Deadline]
"A 9/11 joke didn’t go down well during a showing of new movie Ted attended by former mayor Rudy Giuliani and wife Judith in the Hamptons on Sunday night. [...] In one scene, Ted — the misanthropic CGI teddy bear in the film — asks singer Norah Jones about her nationality, then shockingly spits back, 'Whatever. Thanks for 9/11.' 'No one in the theater laughed,' the Hamptons spy said. 'The joke fell completely flat.' They added the audience 'had too much respect for the mayor' to make light of the disaster. But Rudy and Judi were later seen enjoying the rest of their night in the Hamptons." Whew. [NYP via NYM]
Though that could change: "I've seen bits and pieces of them. Honestly, I'm not just saying this … I really kind of want to see the Chris Nolan one, because he's so crazy talented, so I'll keep saying, 'I gotta go see that, I gotta go see that,' and then like everything I still want to see, fuck, I just forget. There must be a hundred movies out there. I'll say, 'I gotta go see that.' And then I never get around to seeing them. Or maybe I'll see it later on television. I'm really bad at that. But I will tell you this: Every time I see clips of his movies, they look awesome. This trailer that's out now? Fuck, it looks unbelievable." [Grantland]
The fun never ends: "When filming 1960's Kidnapped, he became friends with the Australian actor Peter Finch, also a fond boozer. When they were refused a drink after closing time during a session at an Irish pub, they wrote a cheque to buy the pub so they could have another drink. Having sobered up the next day, they rushed back to cancel their purchase. [...] They ended up befriending the landlord, even attending his funeral. While sobbing as the casket was lowered, the pair soon realised they were at the wrong funeral. Their pal was being buried 100 yards away." [The Independent]
Tilda Swinton and Cate Blanchett? I'm so on the spot: "Walter Hill is planning to write and direct a remake of 1962’s What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which was directed by Robert Aldrich and famously starred rival acting legends Bette Davis, as the former child star Baby Jane Hudson, and Joan Crawford as her crippled sister Blanche. [...] The announcement is sure to trigger lots of speculation over which current actresses can step into the roles so vividly created by Davis and Crawford. 'The two equal leads demand great performers – that is a given,' Hill said. 'The intensity of the gothic storyline makes a reconfiguration of the drama still a potentially searing experience. The idea is to make a modern film without modernizing the period. It needs to resonate the golden age of Hollywood.'" [THR]
From the three albums planned for this fall/winter to the two corresponding band documentaries, one just isn't enough for Billie Joe Armstrong and Co.: "Filmmakers Tim Lynch, a producer of Green Day: Bullet in a Bible, and Tim Wheeler, a co-producer and editor of The White Stripes Under Great White Northern Lights, are creating a documentary on the making of the three albums, ¡Uno!, ¡Dos! and ¡Tre! A second documentary is being created from vintage footage from their pre-Dookie days. Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong tells Billboard.biz that 'the two Tims' have shot the band performing in clubs, rehearsing and recording over the last year and a half. 'It's not going to be the sitting down, head shot of me going "we started out blah blah blah,"' Armstrong says. 'We wanted to get into lifestyles of rock'n'roll and playing rock'n'roll and letting the story kind of tell itself rather than create revisionist (history).'" Sundance premieres are planned, naturally. [Billboard via The Film Stage]
It's way simpler and more straightforward than you might think! "What I don't understand is, why is there not a script editor who is hired before shooting begins, to read the script with notes as to if or not it makes basic narrative sense. This seems like a minor storytelling investment to make. I should not have to read some dude's insane 4500+ word Space Jesus theory (WHICH IS WRONG) about Prometheus after the fact in order to understand Prometheus. Prometheus should make sense on a basic storytelling level." [The Awl]
Oops! Might have been a good idea to settle the legality of using Jimi Hendrix songs before launching into production on a Hendrix biopic, but anyway: The filmmakers behind the Andre Benjamin-starring '60s-set pic announce that the rapper-actor will instead cover a greatest hits of period rock, including ditties by the Beatles, for the flick.
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Bad news, Charlie Kaufman fans: While some cast members had been hopeful in recent months that Frank or Francis would move ahead, Elizabeth Banks (doing the press rounds for People Like Us) spilled news to the contrary.
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Uggie Mania rolls on! On the occasion of his retirement from the biz, everyone's favorite canine actor, Uggie the dog, (well, maybe not everyone's) was honored today with a history-making pawprint ceremony outside of Grauman's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. Guests celebrated with a fire hydrant-shaped cake as the Artist and Water for Elephants co-star sank his paws into the wet cement of Hollywood legend, making him not only the first dog performer to receive the honor, but the first cast member from the Oscar-winning The Artist (which also happens to be released on DVD and Blu-ray this week). [CBS News]
Kick-Ass star Aaron Johnson, 22, and artist Sam Taylor-Wood, 45, have married in England, reports the Mirror. The couple met while making 2009's John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy (he starred, she directed). Johnson next stars in Oliver Stone's Savages; Taylor-Wood most recently directed Daniel Craig as James Bond in drag for a gender equality PSA. They will both reportedly take the name Taylor-Johnson. [Mirror]
Well, not all of you. Just the ones on the haterade-swilling Anti-Sandler train, "an unconscious social ideology that protects Hollywood’s status quo" according to everyone's favorite provocateur, Armond White: "Sandler’s key challenge notes the derangement of social values, beginning with the celebrity young Donny endured [...] silliness doesn’t prevent Sandler from accurately pinpointing our social hypocrisy. That’s what W.C. Fields used to do [...] Despite its deliberate ribaldry and outrage, That’s My Boy poignantly reminds the elite class of its forgotten virtues [...] Sandler dares to express feelings about family, ethnicity, friendship – the realpolitik of genuine social interaction. [City Arts]
Who would've guessed one of the guys behind The Man Show — the highbrow bastion of sensitivity and progressive thought that ended every episode with big-bosomed women jumping on trampolines — would have such animosity towards female comedians? Adam Carolla to The New York Post this week: "They make you hire a certain number of chicks, and they’re always the least funny on the writing staff. The reason why you know more funny dudes than funny chicks is that dudes are funnier than chicks. If my daughter has a mediocre sense of humor, I’m just gonna tell her, 'Be a staff writer for a sitcom. Because they'll have to hire you, they can’t really fire you, and you don’t have to produce that much. It’ll be awesome.'" [NYP]
