“If you show a woman’s mammary glands, if it’s done poorly, it instantly takes away from the comedic element of the scene. It’s too jarring. But [my husband] Chris [Pratt] and I were pitching around a character, a Hollywood-mess character on the red carpet at the opening of a movie. She’s talking to these journalists and she’s wasted. One boob is completely out, and she’s talking on and on, like, [Faris slurs] ‘I’m so excited to be here.’ If you held it long enough and kept it going, just the one boob, it would be so funny.” [BlackBook]
I told them to quit with all the sex scenes, but noooo: "Not to mention any names, but one actor came on me during the take. I had to surreptitiously wipe myself off with the sheet. Fortunately, I liked the guy. I found it a little flattering and a little creepy. We never talked about it, so I can't tell you if it was Method acting on his part or if he just found me pretty, but I suspect I'm not the only actress who's had this experience. But I can tell you that twenty years later, when I run into him, my first thought is, There's the guy that had on-camera sex with my abdomen." [Vulture]
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What if kamikaze NYT op-edder Greg Smith were a chicken from the Henson Workshop? What else? "My proudest moments in life — laying a plastic egg in Johannesberg, my LGTB teen awareness work with Bert, becoming Gonzo's 539th domestic partner — have all come through hard work, with no shortcuts. With its cheap efforts to turn Gen X parents misty with sentimentality, the Muppets just doesn’t feel right to me anymore. I'm no Chicken Little — if things don't change soon, the sky will indeed be falling." [The Awl]
"Gene did think he had Roger on smarts. Whenever Roger claimed to have the superior intellect, Gene would say, 'Aren’t you the guy who wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls?'" Oh, that Siskel. This and many more great At the Movies nuggets can be found over in Slate's exclusive excerpt from The Chicagoan's Roger Ebert-Gene Siskel piece Enemies, A Love Story. Give it a go and settle in for a good, long read on the best frenemyship in film criticism history. [Slate]
Finally, Dr. Uwe Boll is making a movie America actually wants to see! According to The Hollywood Reporter, Boll will start filming in April on Bailout, his 27th film -- a feature-length thriller that follows an everyman New Yorker "who loses everything in the wake of the 2008 Wall Street financial crisis, and who strikes back by killing investment bankers." I don't know about you, but I think this one's got a shot at gaining the cultural foothold that Ollie Stone missed with Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps, nein? [THR]
Forget comparisons to Twilight -- will Lionsgate's The Hunger Games hit Dark Knight-level opening weekend success? So sayeth some experts who peg the PG-13 action pic's tracking in the $85 million - $115 million range on par with Iron Man, Spider-Man, and franchise sequels usually featuring wizards or robots. What's more, The Hollywood Reporter cites "insiders" who think those figures are conservative and say the Suzanne Collins YA adaptation could even bank as much as $140 million thanks to its four-quadrant appeal, which would propel it not only ahead of all but one Twilight sequel in the record books, but into the Top 5 weekend openings of all time. [THR]
"'People learn through storytelling, and our partnership with [CSI creator] Anthony Zuiker in the production of Cybergeddon allows us to reach new audiences in a fresh way,' said Sally Jenkins, Vice President, Worldwide Consumer Marketing at Symantec. 'Through entertainment and dramatization, Cybergeddon will illuminate the serious issue of how our constantly connected lives can be vulnerable to cybercrime, breaches of online privacy and theft.'" [Yahoo!]
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“Callista Gingrich. Karen Santorum. Ann Romney. Now do you really think our country is ready for a white first lady?” Zing! Still a true master. Related: Irrelevant blob Newt Gingrich is upset. [TPM via @raypride]
"'It’s my least favorite thing. [...] People ask me about that movie, but I’ve forgotten it. That was a silly romantic comedy. [Arbitrage] is a much more serious movie that has some real cause and effect.' Incredibly, the grumpy star also claims his Pretty Woman character Edward Lewis helped contribute to the global financial crisis, as he glorified greedy and selfish Wall Street types. 'It made those guys seem dashing, which was so wrong,' Richard explains. 'Thankfully, today, we are all more skeptical of those guys.'" Except for hookers! Some things never change. [Woman's Day via Big Hollywood]
Stephanie Zacharek already kind of addressed this phenomenon in her review, but as John Carter postmortems go, yeesh: "[W]hat's really sad is when you look at the Rotten Tomatoes pages for The Lorax and John Carter. Among 'top critics,' The Lorax has a 48 percent fresh rating, and most of the reviews I've seen have been pretty respectful. (Except for the New Yorker, which says 'The badness of the picture is a shock,' and the New York Times, which called it 'a noisy, useless piece of junk.') And critics pretty much piled onto John Carter — among 'top critics,' it's at 35 percent fresh, with people outright gloating about how expensive it was and how much it falls short. It's like there's a collective agreement that The Lorax is too big and too much of a mainstream juggernaut to call out — but the herd decided it was okay to feed on John Carter." [io9]
Biggest. Bust. Ever: "In light of the theatrical performance of John Carter ($184 million global box office), we expect the film to generate an operating loss of approximately $200 million during our second fiscal quarter ending March 31. As a result, our current expectation is that the Studio segment will have an operating loss of between $80 and $120 million for the second quarter. As we look forward to the second half of the year, we are excited about the upcoming releases of The Avengers and Brave, which we believe have tremendous potential to drive value for the Studio and the rest of the company." [Disney via Deadline]
"Sony Pictures Classics announced that on June 22 it will release Woody Allen’s latest film, the newly titled To Rome With Love. To Rome With Love was a name selected as an homage to the eternal city of Rome where the film was shot on location last summer. This will be used for its worldwide release. The film’s former title, Nero Fiddled, while an appropriate and humorous phrase in the U.S., is not a familiar expression overseas and many international territories preferred a more globally understood name." [SPC]
There was no shortage of stars coming through SXSW 2012, debuting films and projects as diverse as Joss Whedon's Cabin in the Woods to Lena Dunham's HBO series GIRLS. Take a look and see who else dropped in on Austin, Texas for the annual film festival, including: Channing Tatum, Jonah Hill, and their 21 Jump Street crew, Willem Dafoe, Al Gore, Johnny Knoxville, Melissa Leo, Matthew McConaughey, Jack Black, Aubrey Plaza, Gabrielle Union, Bobcat Goldthwait, new director (!) Matthew Lillard, two Broken Lizards, model-turned-actress Dree Hemingway, and more.
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If only all ticket buyers were anthro majors, amirite? "If I were an anthropologist put on Barsoom, I'd try to integrate myself within the Tharks and learn more about their lifestyle. I'd definitely need to know about the current political climate first. That's always a good idea when you're thrust into an alien environment, here literally. Political unrest kept me out of Bolivia... On Barsoom, I'd be drawn to the civil war, but I wouldn't want to become involved. As an anthropologist, we like to keep our heads down in these types of situations. I actually have a shirt from my old archeology club at Boston University that says, 'Don't shoot — I'm an archeologist!' in 13 different languages. Then again, Tharks don't read." [Box Office Magazine]
"Russell Brand was NOT arrested for a misdemeanor yesterday ... turns out it was a FELONY, and the late Steve Jobs may be to blame. We did some digging and just found out ... in Louisiana property damage that exceeds $500 triggers a felony arrest. You'll recall, Brand allegedly snatched a photog's iPhone Monday night and hurled it through a plate glass window. The iPhone alone costs more than $500...Steve Jobs famously believed he could charge a lot for the iPhone -- and did. And now Russell is paying dearly for it." [TMZ]
