Watching mixed martial artist Gina Carano fight on television, director Steven Soderbergh was struck by inspiration: Why not build an action movie around the lethal (and yes, gorgeous) athlete to show audiences what a real action heroine could look like? Forget Angelina Jolie in Salt, or any number of actresses who’ve unconvincingly flitted their way through the genre. Carano was the real deal, a woman who can dole out punches with bone-shattering believability, leap between buildings, and battle Hollywood’s best leading men with aplomb, as evidenced in this week’s Haywire.
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You might have heard there was a big awards show last night? And as usual, the 69th Golden Globes delivered their standard array of highlights, lowlights and headscratching curios over three hours at the Beverly Hilton. Let's revisit the ups and downs in words and pictures, shall we?
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What a week at Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, where the pundits' hustle harmonized with the guilds' bustle to create a heavy-duty wake-up call for some otherwise dormant awards-season underdogs. They also telegraphed danger for a few juggernauts once thought unassailable. What does it all mean as we head into the Critics Choice and Golden Globe Awards weekend? To the Index!
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Awards! So many awards -- this time around it's the Alliance of Women Film Journalists passing along the EDA Awards, their annual choices for the best, worst, weirdest and otherwise noteworthy films of 2011. Find an old standby at the top of the list, along with a few of the Alliance's customarily female-forward and refreshingly cheeky ("Most Egregious Love Interest Age Difference Award," anyone?) accolades. Congrats to all the winners!
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The first Oscar Index entry of 2012 finds Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics a little hungover from the holidays and lot bored from the protracted inertia of awards season. Not even this week's Producers Guild Award nominations could do much to shake up a contest that appears to be both wide open and solidifying into place at the same time. Let's investigate...
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MMA star Gina Carano makes her action heroine debut this month in Steven Soderbergh's spy revenge pic Haywire, which bone-crunched its way into moviegoer hearts during AFI Fest. Can't wait to see Carano put a beat down on just about every leading man (Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor, Michael Fassbender) whose path she crosses? Submit a 10-word review of any Soderbergh film to enter to win a pair of tickets to Thursday's Los Angeles premiere.
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Well, this should go pretty fast: The holiday week has offered a dearth of new narratives to trace and pulses to take, with only one film demonstrating any significant mobility in the studies coming out Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics. Let's get to it!
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Screw Christmas. Forget Hanukkah. To hell with New Year's. There is only one holiday we celebrate in the dank, windowless labs of Movieline's Institute for the Advanced Study of Kudos Forensics, and that is Oscar Night. Thus the latest edition of Oscar Index, offering all the festive year-end joy you can possibly stand. Let's get to it!
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Earlier today 20th Century Fox unveiled a shiny new look at Michael Fassbender in Ridley Scott's 2012 Alien related event pic Prometheus (via Empire), all blond and space-suited. Exciting! As if that wasn't enough to get your juices flowing, an unofficial version of the first trailer for the sci-fi thriller oozed onto the interwebs mere hours ago, and although it's shaky-cammed with fuzzy audio and is even labeled "Leaked"... it's kind of adrenaline-pumpingly awesome.
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If you're both a movie fan and a consummate statistician, it's easy to love and appreciate the Oscars for shoehorning the majority of film history into a manageable grading rubric. I'm an Oscar apologist myself, and I still have one bone to pick with the Academy -- and all award-spewing organizations: the unnecessary reliance on gender-based categories. Is it not more thrilling to pit all actors against each other? Is there such an objective difference between Jeff Bridges and Sandra Bullock? Meryl Streep and Robert Downey Jr.? "Actor" is a gender-neutral term, and I think we'd all better off -- and better entertained -- without the meaningless siphoning. Thus, I'm stacking up the best performances of 2011 without categorical regard for gender or role size. It's a winner-take-all affair, and this winner definitely wants it all. Here's my top 10:
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Ridley Scott has settled on a tagline for his pseudo-prequel to Alien, the star-studded June 2013 release Prometheus: "The Search For Our Beginning Could Lead To Our End." Does that sound a little too much like the Breaking Dawn: Part I tag "Forever is Only the Beginning" to anyone? Both are Hallmarkian takes on mortality, which is a shame considering Prometheus should be one of the most original thrillers of next year. Its new poster, along with our musings thereon, follow.
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You've seen the locations. You've (hopefully) seen the movie. And now, New Yorkers, you are invited to live out at least parts of Michael Fassbender's acclaimed Manhattan odyssey on Saturday during Movieline's Walk of Shame. [UPDATE: We're livetweeting along the way! Read on for details...]
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Breaking Dawn sparkled to the top slot yet again on the quietest weekend of the season, but just take a gander at the healthy size of Shame's art house opening! Meanwhile, the latest offerings from Martin Scorsese and Alexander Payne enjoyed a boost. But I've got to ask: What happened to the Muppets' mojo?
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Since our friends at Next Movie totally went there, why not bat this one around Movieline HQ? It's Friday! Live a little. In honor of Michael Fassbender's infamous display of total nakedness in this week's Shame -- emotional and physical, to be fair -- Next Movie ran down the nine greatest "penis moments" in the movies. Yes, Ewan McGregor. You made the list.
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Spirits were bright Wednesday night in West Hollywood when Fox Searchlight celebrated the season with their annual holiday party -- really, just an excuse to fete Oscar candidates Win Win, Tree of Life, Shame, Martha Marcy May Marlene, and The Descendants like debs at a coming out ball. Movieline caught up with Fox Searchlight's hopefuls at the early awards-season shindig.
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