Two-time Dancing with the Stars champion Julianne Hough doesn't have to shimmy for her supper in her latest movie role. Her leading-lady role in the latest Nicholas Sparks movie, Safe Haven, represents her first straight acting gig - no dancing or singing required! more »
Many of us who were alive in the 1980s claimed not to listen to heavy metal or its almost indistinguishable twin, hard rock. But we did listen, or at least we heard it — it was unavoidable, an omnipresent aural beast slithering out of car radios, grungy bars and retail-establishment stereo systems. Even if you were more attuned to punk or jazz or just about anything else, it was part of the background noise of your life whether you liked it or not. If nothing else, Rock of Ages — adapted from the Broadway show of the same name, in which ’80s metal hits from the likes of Def Leppard, Foreigner and Night Ranger were woven into a rudimentary boy-meets-girl love story — reminds us just how good many of those songs we were pretending not to listen to really were. The picture has a good-natured, if self-conscious, spring to its step, at least until you-know-who shows up in a bejeweled devil’s head codpiece. The movie almost doesn’t survive his slurpy tongue bath.
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Fans of the Broadway musical Rock of Ages may throw tomatoes when they see the big screen version; director Adam Shankman, screenwriter Justin Theroux and even Tom Cruise himself made some major changes to the plot of the stage show. Some make the edgy musical more family friendly, but others sharpen the story. Will fans embrace their toned-down Rock of Ages movie?
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After zooming to fame with TV's Las Vegas and the Transformers series (with the odd detour into Katherine Heigl rom-com territory), Josh Duhamel is coming full circle, in a way: The onetime All My Children soap star set to step into the next Nicholas Sparks romantic weepie, Safe Haven, opposite Footloose/Rock of Ages starlet Julianne Hough.
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Here's what I've been waiting for with all these pseudo-karaoke Rock of Ages glimpses we've endured: A look at Mary J. Blige — the realest singer in the cast, if you ask me — doing her thing. Watch as Mary J. as Justice Charlier drops the 411 on neophyte exotic dancer Julianne Hough to the sounds of Journey's "Any Way You Want It," which is apparently the rallying empowerment anthem of strippers everywhere circa 1987.
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Real talk: the new trailer for Adam Shankman's Rock of Ages musical embodies all that people who hate karaoke hate karaoke for. Namely, middle-aged folks blaring through cheesy renditions of their favorite '80s make-out/rock songs while the rest of us patiently wait for the plaintive strains of Journey to end, already. I say this as a person who likes -- nay, loves -- karaoke. Sigh. The Twisted Sister/Starship mash-up you really never asked for coming in 3, 2, 1.
God save Craig Brewer's Footloose, which is less a movie for today's audiences than for yesterday's -- and I mean that in the good way. This is a pop entertainment made with an eye for detail: When our teen hero and the young woman he's been wooing move in for their first kiss, the setting sun peeps out from behind their conjoined silhouettes. Corny, right? Get this: The rays beam out through a star filter. You can roll your eyes at the obviousness of it all, or you can marvel that a filmmaker cared to make a choice so traditional, so clichéd, that it becomes a kind of pop-culture mission statement. It's as if Brewer is taking a stand for movies that look like movies instead of audience hipness barometers.
Craig Brewer knows that some of you are skeptical about his remake of Footloose, the 1984 Kevin Bacon teen classic about lusty high-schoolers who kick off their Sunday shoes, strain against their small town conservative parents, and "angry dance" their way to prom. But the director, who helped bring rap music to the Academy's attention in his Oscar-winning Hustle & Flow (and next chained Christina Ricci to a radiator in Black Snake Moan, another tale set in the Southern region where Brewer was raised), comes at it with a fan's devotion and with an awareness of how religion, morality and politics still overlap in the lives of teenagers today. And, as he watched Kevin Bacon do when he was a kid watching Footloose on the big screen, Brewer admits to indulging in his fair share of "angry dancing."
Footloose remake co-star and Dancing with the Stars ingénue Julianne Hough has landed the lead in Diablo Cody's newly untitled feature directorial debut about a conservative young woman who regains her faith after heading to Sin City. And who will play the wild and crazy figure that helps her on her debauched path to redemption? None other than Russell Brand. Perfect casting, no?
The new trailer for Craig Brewer's Footloose remake debuted today, offering your first sneak peek at the contemporized, MTV-friendly update of the 1984 Kevin Bacon classic. To learn more about Brewer's fresh-but-faithful take on the trailblazing dance pic, Movieline spoke with star and award-winning dancer Kenny Wormald, your new Ren McCormack. (To answer your first question: Yes, he's a fan of the original, even though it came out the year he was born.)
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