Movieline hit the red carpet at Saturday's Spirit Awards, where Exit Through the Gift Shop took home Best Documentary, with one guiding mission: Find out who Banksy really is! But just in case we couldn't get to the bottom of that enigma, we had a backup mission: Find out what he'd look like if he came to an awards show incognito! Hit the jump to watch the results of Movieline's investigation into The Banksy Identity, as aided by a few celebrity informants.
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I'll just make this short because it's been a long week and, honestly, I don't have the words for it anyway. Let it suffice to say that when our country's most famous self-immolating politician is mashed up with our most famous self-immolating TV and film star, there's something unquestionably mesmerizing. Orrrrr it's just the sulphur getting to me. You make the call.
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I've been fascinated with Ray Kurzweil since reading a Rolling Stone interview with him several years ago. In a nutshell, Kurzweil believes very strongly that humans and machines will merge within the next forty years or so, and that mortality itself will become obsolete. He's coined an entire borderline-religous movement based around the day where humans and technology merged, which he calls singularity. This wouldn't be so interesting if the guy wasn't a bonafide genius who Bill Gates and the owners of Google regularly call into meetings. So he's not a total uninformed crackpot. Also, he has a personal obsession with living to see singularity so that he will be able to resurrect his dead father. In other words, it's about time someone made a movie about the guy.
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When the trailer for Bruno debuted in 2009, Universal tried to sell audiences on the critical love for Sacha Baron Cohen's previous summer comedy, Borat. It didn't work. Cut to 2011, and here comes Warner Bros. using a similar strategy in the first teaser for The Hangover Part II (it looks like those Roman numerals are part of the official title), which uses quotes about the first film to fill up much of the trailer's length. Is this highly anticipated sequel doomed to face a Bruno-like box office fate?
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James Franco and Anne Hathaway (and the ABC promo department) have done well in creating a sense of guarded optimism about the job the pair will do hosting the Oscars on Sunday night. Which is why you should think twice before watching the latest promo for the show. No, it's not romantic and beautiful, like the 19 seconds of the Grease parody that James Franco sent out to Twitter on Wednesday; it's awkward and cringe-worthy. Unless the idea of seeing Anne Hathaway-as-Madonna-as-Evita singing "Rump Shaker" is your idea of a party. Then, watch away! Popping and locking at your desk is optional.
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After Swimming Pool became something of a surprise art house hit, the United States more or less went back to ignoring French filmmaker François Ozon, despite the fact he seemed to nearly double his output in the succeeding years. That seemed fair enough, since his output can indeed be pretty inconsistent. But after watching the trailer for Potiche, I'd like to point out that the guy at least deserves credit for audacity. After gaining international recognition for erotic thrillers, he went ahead and made a fairy tale about a flying baby (Ricky), and now, what appears to be a French version of Working Girl with Catherine Deneuve and Gérard Depardieu.
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Michael Kahn isn't exactly what you'd call a household name, but you could easily argue he's the driving force behind the householding of Steven Spielberg's name. After all, as Spielberg's longtime editor, Kahn has cut two dozen movies with a collective box-office gross of nearly $3.5 billion, winning three Oscars -- one more than the director himself has -- along the way. At last weekend's American Cinema Editors awards, he was recognized with a Lifetime Achievement honor. Read on to see his greatest hits in seven minutes flat.
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"Find the bomb, and you'll find the bomber." So says Vera Farmiga (playing what one has to assume is the daughter of Basil Exposition) in the latest trailer for Source Code, Duncan Jones' high concept science-fiction thriller that will have its world premiere at SXSW next month. How does this new bit of marketing compare with the first trailer that was released last November?
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Whoa! Forget the flying actors in Spiderman: Turn off the Dark! It looks like Danny Boyle put together a play where characters literally morph into other characters, complete with Jacob's Ladder-style strobe motion! Oh wait, this is just a marketing video. Still, while this "trailer" for Boyle's stage production of Frankenstein probably doesn't visually reflect the final product (though God help us all if it does), it showcases an aspect even more indispensable to theatre than spectacle: The performances.
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Imagine that you are the young, beautiful relatives of two celebrities -- one, a co-host of this year's Academy Awards; the other, an actual Oscar winner -- and you have some down time on your hands. What do you do? If you're these two up-and-coming stars, you rent a red convertible, take some cues from Breathless and shoot a music video for the pop song "Go Outside" by the Cults. Take a look ahead.
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Earlier this month, Oscar joke writer Bruce Vilanch revealed that a planned bit involving Cher, host James Franco dressed as Cher, and the Burlesque song "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me," was scratched from the telecast because the Golden Globe-winning track wasn't nominated. Turns out Vilanch might not have been exaggerating. Franco posted a recording of himself warbling through "You Haven't Seen the Last of Me" on his must-read Twitter page late Monday evening, writing: "They pulled this from the Oscar show. Damn it." Click ahead to listen, but heed this advice: Earmuffs. He's not very good.
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It seems like Sofia Coppola's combination of hipster-chic and art house sensibilities should actually lend themselves well to commercials. For example, slap a car logo at the end of the first shot of Somewhere and voila: A singular, eye-catching and slightly subversive car commercial! Alas, this new, Dior ad follows in the steps of her previous one in that there's not much here besides pretty people looking pretty while spending time in a pretty place. Here, Natalie Portman and Alden Ehrenreich (Tetro) play seductive games while drenched in warm light. Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg croon in the background. Needless to say, It will likely alienate Coppola's detractors even more, but die-hard fans of Coppola or Portman's back should find plenty to love.
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Do you ever have that recurring nightmare where midgets and German circus folk take commands from talking toilets and wear Hitler masks and cast spells to bring Michael Jackson back from the dead in zombie form? If you didn't before, you will now after watching this trailer for the insane-sounding German flick The Return of the Moonwalker. Happy holiday weekend!
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"It was one of the most magical times ever," recalls Anthony Kiedis of the 1980s Los Angeles punk scene that gave birth to bands like his Red Hot Chili Peppers amidst a haze of sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll. But for indie rock icon Bob Forrest, lead singer of the post-punk band Thelonious Monster, the freely available substances that liberated the scene also sent him into a spiraling drug dependency that ruined his career. After years of battling his demons, Forrest became a renowned drug counselor helping others, and his struggle formed the basis of the documentary Bob and the Monster.
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Jason Sudeikis was convincing as Floyd, Liz Lemon's ideal boyfriend on 30 Rock, so the obvious next question is: Can he also play the worst husband on Earth? The new Farrelly brothers movie Hall Pass lets us find out, and its red band trailer is full of the booby jokes, boners, and swear words that will scandalize junior high schools across remote parts of the Midwest. Also, Owen Wilson is Carson Kressly now.
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