In Tuesday afternoon's round-up of news, Lionsgate sets dates on a two feature plan for the Hunger Games' final book. Also, a parade of stars receive nominations for Latino awards, while the Melbourne Film Festival takes shape with a team-up from Muriel's Wedding among the titles set to screen. And Sweden's Simon heads to the U.S.
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And doesn't it make sense? With the final installment of the mega franchise coming out, how could there not be a ton of cash? Notes the publication, "At this point, could anyone else play Bella Swan in Twilight?" Good point! The publication, which dishes out the super rich and famous wealth numbers annually said Stewart made an estimated $12.5 million plus a share of the profits from the mega-franchise in her last two stints on Twilight, but she also made more cash via Snow White and the Huntsman this past year.
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After months of humiliating posters and destabilizing trailers, the big-screen "adaptation" of Heidi Murkoff's megahit advice tome What to Expect When You're Expecting has finally arrived at multiplexes nationwide. Critical reactions are about as chilly as you might expect for a film that turns one of the most influential books of the last quarter-century into a kitchen-sink ensemble romcom; while director Kirk Jones's film does seem to have its following (21 percent fresh on Rotten Tomatoes! Even A.O. Scott is into it! Sort of!), the overriding sense seems to be one of vague — or maybe not so vague — loathing. Let's cool off with a refreshing dip in the bile.
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Hollywood, a humble request? I realize that abortion is has become too divisive a topic these days to drop into a mainstream movie product like What To Expect When You're Expecting, especially in what's an overall innocuous ensemble comedy based, somehow, on a bestselling pregnancy guidebook (between this and Battleship, it's one strange week for source material). It's also a tough topic from which to wring laughs. And in something carefully calculated to be as broad in appeal as possible, any mention of the option of terminating a pregnancy is just going to be one more thing that could isolate potential movie audiences, like an ugly poster, being in a foreign language or attempting analysis of the Iraq War.
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Also in Thursday afternoon's Biz Break: Gavin O'Connor (Warrior) is set to direct a post-tsunami Japan crime thriller, Naomi Watts and Matt Dillon's Sunlight Jr. will preview at Cannes, Nigel Lythgoe teams with BAFTA L.A., and Venice winners are spotlighted in NYC Italian film series.
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Neither the ladies nor the guys have emerged from the What to Expect When You're Expecting marketing miasma unscathed, but at least now we can get all of our ensemble humiliation out of the way in one convenient new one-sheet.
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The champagne's been tippled, the winners are all celebrating, and somewhere Uggie's getting a LOT of sausages. So let's relive the highlights of the 2012 Academy Awards show! Click through for Movieline's gallery and name your favorite moment from the big night. Was it Best Supporting Actress Octavia Spencer's emotional acceptance speech? Or Descendants co-scripter Jim Rash's impromptu Angelina Jolie impersonation? Those bits and more in vivid photographic detail after the jump!
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Signs continue to emerge suggesting that What to Expect When You're Expecting is a real movie with real stars and a very real prospect of opening theatrically, as opposed to one of those mock all-star trailers that the Funny or Die crew coughed up over bad Chinese food at the end of a 14-hour day. The latest indication: Character posters! It's like The Avengers of maternity anthologies! If, that is, the Avengers labored superhumanly on behalf of the beleaguered population of Cringe City.
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Ten years after working as a director and consulting producer on Freaks and Geeks, the heartwarming television series about a few misunderstood high school troublemakers (and their more wholesome peers), Jake Kasdan found his biggest box office success this summer with Bad Teacher, another project profiling a misunderstood hallway troublemaker. Starring Cameron Diaz as an English teacher more interested in smoking pot and procuring breast implants than molding the the minds of her middle school students, Bad Teacher earned over $200 million worldwide, establishing Kasdan -- son of The Big Chill and Accidental Tourist filmmaker Lawrence Kasdan -- as a heavyweight comedic director and rounding out a summer known for it's R-rated, female-led comedies.
"Move, b****, get out the way!" said Cars 2 to Green Lantern as the Pixar sequel burned rubber over all over the competition this weekend. Hey, if Mater and Lightning McQueen can eat sushi and have car doors and live in a world with sidewalks but no humans with no discernable method of procreation in place, Cars 2 can speak in the parlance of Ludacris in my head. Especially when it defies everyone - skeptics, haters, that 34 percent Rotten Tomatoes rating -- to rake in $68M in its opening weekend. Let's review the weekend receipts!
I'm waiting on certain Hollywood legends to find descendents in current cineplex stars. Far as I'm concerned, we're in dire need of a new Jack Lemmon, a new Shirley MacLaine, and a new Madeline Kahn, along with many, many others. But every so often, a millennial star finds a way to exhume the spirit of an old star while adding refreshing relevance. I present to you the following hypothesis in silver screen genealogy: Cameron Diaz is our new Goldie Hawn.
Whether you watched it for the $3 million ads, the halftime show, or the men in tight spandex pants shoving each other up and down a grassy field, Super Bowl XLV was rich with memorable moments. Some got your geek pulse racing (ZOMG guys, it's Red Skull!). Others were expensive lapses in judgment (tsk tsk, Groupon) or unfortunate brain farts (Xtina, we're looking at you.) Relive the glory and the wonder as Movieline counts down the best and worst moments of Super Bowl 2011.
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