The teaser trailer for The Runaways came out today, and it's got a tasty helping of Dakota Fanning, Michael Shannon in eye makeup, and Kristen Stewart's Joan Jett throwing both fits and chairs. The clip won't do anything to derail the want-to-see buzz building for its premiere at Sundance, though I can't help but wonder: Are the odds stacked against this movie in general release?
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It's been a wild ride for the bronzed cast of MTV's Jersey Shore with advertiser complaints, sucker punches, more complaints from Italian-American groups and death threats. But last night, Pauly D., "The Situation" and Snooki put the negativity out of their blown-out and poofed heads to celebrate the birth of Christ on Jimmy Kimmel. Outfitted in robes with easy ab access and joined by a camel, the three wise guidos performed the Story of Christmas. Video after the jump.
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Good news, everyone: After a fairly smashing teaser, the full trailer for Hot Tub Time Machine has been released...and it still looks pretty damn funny. Let's admit that there are so many ways this could have gone wrong -- Adam Sandler could have used the hot tub to learn a cloying lesson, or Broken Lizard could have used the concept to make another movie. Instead, has director Steve Pink pulled off a minor miracle?
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The latest trailer for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland arrived on the scene this morning, 48 hours ahead of its 3-D IMAX introduction ahead of Avatar. And for once, we're getting a look at the true scope and feel of the thing -- which is to say, Johnny Depp doing a ton of mugging against a fittingly sprawling, doleful Burtonian canvas. It's not as bad as it sounds.
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In addition to unveiling two new photo stills from the set of Robin Hood, Universal on Monday saw its first trailer for Ridley Scott's revisionist action epic released into the wild. I don't know what we all should have been expecting, but if you had "loud 90-second car commercial-meets-Gladiator" on your own prediction scorecard, please step forth and collect your winnings!
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Back in late October, we teased you with a photo of Jake Gyllenhaal and Elmo, promoting the Brothers star's upcoming appearance on Sesame Street. The segment has finally aired, and featured Jake standing beneath a smiling octopus, its draped tentacles making him look a bit like Whoopi Goldberg. The two discuss the fact that they'd probably be better off not stuck together, and will therefore "separate" themselves. They eventually succeed and go their separate ways; Jake marries a rich rancher's daughter, but her father has him killed when he finds out he used to have an ongoing arrangement with an octopus. Then the octopus goes to Jake's parents' house and retrieves the hip waders Jake wore when they met, and clutches them to his chest and weeps. It's all very touching and tragic.
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Yesterday, we suggested Mo'nique suffered from a yet-to-be-discovered neurological disorder known as Auscartism. We do believe apologies to Ms. 'nique are in order -- as it is we, not she, who is hopelessly Auscartistic. Not only is the Precious star (and, one feigned orgasm later, we're now convinced a Best Supporting Actress sure-thing) willing to submit to the drudgery of Oscar-season roundtables, she cuts a clean swath through the scores of anemic thoroughbreds pegged by THR as her strongest competition:
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No sooner had a stunt driver taken out a Sbarro in Times Square than everybody knew that Disney had some dark, curse-y magic on its hands with The Sorcerer's Apprentice. But only today, as the first trailer arrives online, do we realize just how dark. (Hint: Pretty dark!)
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From the moment James Cameron unveiled the first tantalizing glimpses of his game changing™ cinematic effort, Avatar, you could say Movieline had developed a perplexing case of déjà vu, seeing in Pandora's lush, computer-generated landscapes and lemur-like wildlife everything from the biggest animated flop of all time, to one of Cameron's earlier, deadlier, fishier efforts. But we didn't see the parallels to that enduring, all-marionette homage to dick-swinging U.S. foreign policy, Team America: World Police. Luckily, YouTube user oyguvaltshappy did, and proceeded to craft what can only be described as a flawlessly edited mash-up, using Team footage set entirely to the soundtrack of the second, better-received Avatar trailer. Let's hope the actual Avatar is half as good as this is, though I doubt there will be any Na'vi sex scenes to match the exquisiteness of Team's acrobatic puppet filthiness.
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Blame it perhaps on Oprah, who famously called Mo'nique after first seeing Precious and declared, "So what are you wearing to the Oscars, girl?" Or maybe it was another female figure from her more distant past, a strong-willed grandmother who sat a 7-year-old future superstar on her lap and instructed, "One day, they'll be expecting you to dance for your gold prize. Don't do it, Mo'mo. When that day come, you let them dance for you." Whatever the case, when it comes to the awards derby, Mo'nique is not having any of it. Absent from most of the early Precious campaigning and film festival premieres, the comedian and actress's first direct acknowledgment of the race came in the form of this pragmatic and much-quoted kiss-off:
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The Jay Leno Show's "Earn Your Plug" segment is already an awkward enough affair. Jay Leno burns through five minutes on-air by asking Oscar-winning actors and actresses like Morgan Freeman and Penelope Cruz to hula or teach him how to spread his legs for the right to promote their upcoming films. But last night, producers upped the awkwardness ante by renting a ping-pong table, a scantily clad world-class champion and a pair of six inch stilettos for Susan Sarandon's segment, which turned out to be a complete disaster -- or triumph in spontaneity! Decide for yourself, after the jump.
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Better late than never, find herewith Michael Bay's blustery, satiny, much-anticipated Victoria's Secret commercial. The spot premiered during the recent VS Fashion Show on CBS, distilling a grab bag of Bay fetishes -- nudity, pyrotechnics, violence, aircraft (both idle and in operation), expensive cars, and women in peril -- to one extraordinary 92-second sit. And by "extraordinary," I mean "hunched so far over my desk with laughter I missed half the good stuff." So after several more thorough looks, and without further comment, I present nine mindblowing frames from an unprecedented masterwork of ADD, bombast, spectacle and tastelessness -- which of course I mean in only the best way. (The full ad follows as well.)
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While waiting for that mythic Arrested Development script to fall from the frozen banana stand in the sky, David Cross penned a pilot for himself called The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret. The series stars Cross as a hapless employee who flukes himself into a promotion abroad, Will Arnett as his brazenly inappropriate boss ("If I wanted to see you wear jeans, I would have gone to your sh*tty house!"), Spike Jonze in his first substantial role since Three Kings, and a cameo by Cross's real life girlfriend, Amber Tamblyn. On top of that star power, a three-minute clip (after the jump) proves that the series is funnier than Parks & Recreation. Alas, the series is being aired exclusively on UK's Channel 4. So which U.S. network is going to step up and purchase what could be the best overseas office comedy since The Office? Movieline investigates.
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A little less than a month ago Movieline presented you with some snippets from a clip blending the heights of Eastern batsh*ttery with the depths of Western selling out -- an art form perhaps better known as "the Japanese TV commercial." Factor in Quentin Tarantino, however -- particularly as the free-swinging, language-butchering, kimono-rocking kung-fu "Uncle Tara-san" -- and, well, yeah. Even the Japanese probably don't have a word for that. Thankfully they have video, however, and you can see the finished product after the jump.
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The Harry Potter franchise may be in its final stages, but it's about to attempt a heavily scrutinized gambit: the late-in-the-game extension of a series by splitting its final chapter in two. (It's a strategy so seemingly win-win -- please the fans who want everything included, and please the studio bean-counters who never want this exciting money train to stop -- that the Twilight franchise may employ the same thing.) How does the newly released teaser for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows sell it?
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