The new trailer for Steven Soderbergh's Behind The Candelabra sure is compelling, but will the HBO movie do justice to Liberace? The clip leaves little doubt that Michael Douglas, who plays the flamboyant entertainer in this tragicomic love story, and Matt Damon, who portrays his much younger lover, Scott Thorson, are going to be memorable, and that Soderbergh has taken a measured approach to the camp aspects of this story. But what I can't tell from the footage is whether Behind The Candelabra will give Liberace his due as a pioneering postwar performance artist. more »
Also in Monday morning's round-up of news briefs, Michael Douglas' And So It Goes proves popular with buyers; Argo heads to Doha Tribeca Film Festival; and Cafe de Flore shines at the Specialty Box Office.
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The world sat on stitches as the Cold War raged. Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in Iceland as the world glared. Would the world order of two superpowers on the brink end after decades of a nuclear arms race come to a close? Would a Communist and a Republican actually come to an understanding? Could Mikhail and Ronnie get along? If Nancy and Raisa were any indication, that would be a - no! The meeting that might have ended the U.S.-Soviet standoff is of course heading to the big screen and Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz will portray Gorbachev in Reykjavik.
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Also in Wednesday afternoon's round-up of news briefs, Rialto Pictures picks up theatrical rights to French company StudioCanal's massive library for the U.S. Indie Eden heads to theaters. Animation distributor has Oscar ambitions for several titles. And "Digital Hollywood" producer is dead of apparent suicide.
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Steven Soderbergh refuses to let up his breakneck pace of filming and is already at work on his Liberace biopic Behind the Candelabra, which stars Michael Douglas as the flamboyant sparkly-suited superstar pianist (pictured above in one of his more understated moments). Beside Douglas and his bouffant in the first pic from the set (viewable here via ABC News), we find co-star Matt Damon, who's rocking quite the '70s coif himself as Liberace's companion and alleged gay lover Scott Thorson.
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Also in Friday morning's Biz Break, the Weinsteins go for a sneak of their latest French release paired with Oscar-winner The Artist, the Time Warner chief's recipe for how to combat movie piracy, and more.
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"In the movie Wall Street I play Gordon Gekko, a greedy corporate executive who cheated to profit while innocent investors lost their savings. The movie was fiction, but the problem is real." And with that, Michael Douglas stumps for the FBI in a new public service announcement warning investors against financial misdeeds. If Gordon Gekko himself says greed is no longer good, it must be true. Fraudsters, beware!
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The brilliant haute spy character Modesty Blaise – created by British author Peter O’Donnell in 1963 and kept alive, through 2002, in a series of comic books and novels – has been botched on film so many times that those of us who love this urbane, intuitive temptress (with a flair for hand-to-hand combat) have mostly given up hope. Joseph Losey first missed the target with the 1966 Modesty Blaise; Scott Spiegel took another wobbly shot with the 2004 direct-to-video My Name Is Modesty: A Modesty Blaise Adventure. But the spirit of Modesty lives, by another name and in a different sort of story, in Stephen Soderbergh’s stylish, quietly exhilarating Haywire, which features mixed martial-arts star Gina Carano as a hit person with a smoldering, deadpan gaze and nutcracker thighs. She also, as it happens, looks killer in a cocktail dress.
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Now hear this! No, seriously, hear this: Alec Baldwin has a new WNYC podcast called Here's the Thing, which will comprise a series of conversations with the actor's Hollywood peers and other cultural luminaries (including "makers of public policy, critics and comedians") about "what motivates them" and "how [...] they feel about what they do" -- among other things. The first episode, which you can listen to below, feature Michael Douglas and is pretty much just as awesome as you'd imagine.
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Earlier this year producer Jerry Weintraub predicted Oscar gold for one of his upcoming pet projects, the Steven Soderbergh-helmed Liberace biopic. "I've got a great script, it's a great story, and they're great characters," he enthused to Movieline. "That's what I make movies about. It's going to win an Academy Award... for Michael Douglas." Well, not so fast.
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I admit, I can tolerate remakes. Everything from Fame and Footloose to Dirty Dancing and that globetrotting version of Clue are fine by me, even if they're terribly executed. I just don't have to see some of them! But something about the news of NBC's planned TV series adaptation of Romancing the Stone just hurts. Romancing the Stone, of course, is the 1984 action/adventure romantic comedy starring Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas. Could you stand to watch a Romancing the Stone series?
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January isn't exactly the time of year when you want your film to hit screens, but maybe Steven Soderbergh's Haywire will defy the "dumping grounds" curse! After all, in addition to starring MMA fighter Gina Carano as a double-crossed covert ops specialist, it's written by Lem Dobbs (The Limey) and has folks like Channing Tatum, Antonio Banderas, Michael Angarano, Ewan MacGregor, Michael Fassbender, and Michael Douglas filling out the cast. Mmm, Fassbender. Yup, we're in. Relativity will release the film January 20, 2012. [Press release]
