See, Mo'Nique? When you've got better things to do than drop by an awards ceremony to pick up your hardware, just find an animated stand-in who can express your gratitude. If you need to borrow one, check with Wes Anderson; he is on the practice's cutting-edge, having last night deployed his Fantastic Mr. Fox character Weasel to pick up the National Board of Review award for Special Achievement in Filmmaking. Click through for the video.
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Who'd have thought we'd ever find ourselves in a place where we'd be watching John Travolta, seated in an all-white room furnished only with 10-foot letters spelling out his daughter's name, as he intently listens to her describe her fantasy alternate universe (it involves unicorns and unlimited lattes)? Wait! There's more! He's also singing a Bobby Brown cover, and since it's from the soundtrack of Walt Disney ape-rape movie, Old Dogs, they've splice in scenes from the film! Hello, Justin Long! Hello, deformed Joker smile! Let's break for an instrumental, and discuss our fantasy worlds again: There's elephants riding airplanes, and lions are house pets, and skunks are men's hairpieces! This might be better than Up, Disney! Are you sure you want to make any serious changes to your roster? [via Film Drunk]
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Sadly, that Save Better Off Ted! campaign is not gathering much steam. With only $490.42 in donations (nearly half of that contributed by a very big Ted fan, Jeffrey) that will go towards deluging ABC executive offices with 500 um, keychains, Better Off Ted needs all the help it can get before the network runs through its remaining season two episodes by the end of January. So watch this NSFW clip of outtakes from this week's episode and try to tell me that Better Off Ted is not the best show you have not been watching. Maybe even tune in tonight at 9:30 p.m. And if not, at least you will have increased your insult vocabulary tenfold, you "sister-f*cking hillbilly!"
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The cheeky, do-it-yourself awards-campaign engineers behind Moon have come up with their latest strategem in the long war to earn Sam Rockwell an Oscar nomination. And as with all overearnest TV appeals involving the humanitarian aid of disadvantaged children, it's kind of hilarious. But! Is it persuasive?
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Last night on Letterman, Bradley Cooper rehashed some of his pre-fame gigs, which included serving as a hotel doorman and hosting a little-watched Discovery Channel show called Globe Trekkers. "The idea was that you were not an expert and they loved that and they wanted to watch you suffer," said Cooper, who was sent by the show to cycle the Viking trail and kayak with orca whales. However, one delicious bit of Globe Trekkers-induced suffering was conspicuously absent from Cooper's anecdote: The time the show forced the then-25-year-old to go to a nude beach in Croatia and take his clothes off. Lucky for you, Movieline's got the video. Enjoy!
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Having once attended the very ceremony at which Mariah Carey delivered this -- not speech, per se, so much as a series of incredulous moans -- I can hereby testify that the only way to survive the Palm Springs Film Festival opening gala is to drink yourself under a table. (It dulls the sounds of Mary Hart shooshing a crowd of 80-year-old plastic-surgeried socialites for three-and-a-half hours.) So this one's for you, Mariah. And congrats! [via PopEater]
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A lot, it turns out! This corporate video from the "virtual backlot" magicians at Stargate Studios, reveals just how much of what we assume are TV location shoots are actually filmed in front of green screens. Why bother shooting Ugly Betty sidestepping a reporter and bumping into someone on the street when you can build a to-scale replica covered in green material, then digitally add an extra being jostled by a phantom Ugly Betty in post? Voila! The illusion is seamless! Watching this, I was reminded of an old sketch from Late Night with David Letterman in which Mark Hamill cracks an egg into a bowl; then a video spoofing those Star Wars making-of featurettes reveals that the egg was rigged with several tiny explosive charges, and Hamill had actually just mimed cracking it in front of a blue screen. Get it? It would have been easier just to shoot him cracking an egg! (But not as cool.) (And if anyone can find that video, I'd be much obliged.) Anyway, here's the video. Et tu, Hiro Nakamura? Et tu? [via Paul Scheer]
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Hey, a video! Movieline couldn't let 2009 draw to a close without presenting some awards, so take three minutes to watch as I hand out honors both irreverent and admiring. If anything, it's the only time you'll see a Supporting Actor trophy that Christoph Waltz doesn't win. Enjoy!
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Man, oh man. So, OK. In (500) Days of Summer, remember that part where Joseph Gordon-Levitt is so pleased that he got inside Zooey Deschanel's American Apparel boy shorts that he launches into a full-fledged musical number scored to the Hall and Oates classic "You Make My Dreams"? Well, I have a hunch that director Marc Webb is feeling mighty unambitious right about now, because Shorewood High School has gone and filmed their own lip-dub of the song, and it's shot in (seemingly) one take, and it was filmed backwards, and it's amazing. How long before Hollywood signs Mr. Ballew's Video Class to a three-picture deal?
Take a look for yourself:
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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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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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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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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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