It started with the pudding. Oh, not just any pudding: A perfect pool of melt-in-your-mouth chocolate-hazelnut goodness -- a confection so rich, so irresistible, that even Tom Hardy found himself drawn like a moth to a flame to the dessert table before the press conference for This Means War the other week in Beverly Hills. He grabbed a saucer and ambled over to a pack of bewildered journalists, offering an ebullient bon mot about The Woman in Black. “I’d have eaten through Daniel Radcliffe to get that part!” he raved, or so the story goes, before setting down his dish and disappearing once more into the back hallways of the Four Seasons.
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If men are from Mars and women from Venus, This Means War drifts in cold, empty space somewhere between the two orbits, where, as the famous tagline goes, no one can hear you scream.
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Anticipating total Valentine's Day box office domination by competitor The Vow -- the Rachel McAdams-has-amnesia-and-can't-remember-she's-married-to-Channing Tatum weepie -- Fox has shifted their McG-helmed spy love triangle action rom-com This Means War again back to Friday, Feb. 17 to avoid being slaughtered. The Reese Witherspoon/Chris Pine/Tom Hardy romp is still sneaking into theaters on Feb. 14 for a limited pre-opening run, but who are we kidding: Channing Tatum + tears + pining is the way to go, especially if there's no shot at Hardy and Pine running off together in each others' arms. [Deadline]
It’s the biggest, most important question of the season, people: Whom will Reese Witherspoon choose, between pillow-lipped Brit Tom Hardy and confident playboy Chris Pine, in the spy vs. spy love triangle rom-com This Means War? While you won’t get any spoilers here for the Valentine’s Day release, let Hardy and director McG tease you with the envelope-pushing alternate ending ideas that didn’t quite make it to the final cut. (And no -- McG didn't learn from Terminator: Salvation, which he admitted he “pussed out on.” Hindsight, my friends.)
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Oh, Harvey: “We have a star in Tom Hardy who’s completely anonymous right now. If you go to a line at the ArcLight nobody would know who he is. [...] He’s going to be a huge movie star by August.” [LAT]
Here’s cause for excitement for J.J. Abrams’s Star Trek sequel, set to debut May 2013: British actor Benedict Cumberbatch has signed on to join returning cast members Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Co. Better news: He’s reportedly playing the villain. If your first thought is “Benewhat Cumberwho?” see why you should take this as very good news after the jump.
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After premiering this past weekend before Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows screenings, the latest official trailer for The Dark Knight Rises has hit the Internet today. Depicting a Gotham City eight years after the events in 2008's The Dark Knight, the trailer teases societal upheaval, (literally) explosive football plays and best of all, two new villains: Anne Hathaway's Catwoman (or at least, Selina Kyle) and Tom Hardy's mysterious, mumbling Bane. Let's parse the trailer the only way we know how: By the numbers.
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At the center of Tomas Alfredson's marvelously taut espionage thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (based on the John Le Carré novel previously adapted into a celebrated 1979 British miniseries) is an unusually understated turn by Gary Oldman as George Smiley, a recently retired career spy of few words quietly trying to uncover a mole within British intelligence. Oldman acknowledges a departure of sorts from the wild, often manic characters he built much of his career on -- Sid Vicious, Count Dracula, Beethoven, DEA agent Stansfield of Leon, to name a few. Some of Oldman's best-known roles are, as he described to Movieline this week in Los Angeles, more rock 'n' roll. "Smiley," he explained, "is jazz."
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This won't come nearly close to matching the poetry witnessed throughout last week's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy premiere giveaway contest (or the tense, masterful symphony of the film itself, chock-full of your favorite British thesps and "Pillow lipped chameleons"), but: "Thanks to all who played/With odes to Tinker, Tailor.../Winners after the jump!"
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Attention all spy genre enthusiasts, Cold War buffs and Gary Oldman fans: Movieline is giving away three (3) pairs of VIP tickets to the Los Angeles premiere of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy to the trio of readers who come up with the most clever haiku poems dedicated to one of the film's stars.
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Throw on your fur and gaze sinisterly by a swimming pool, because those collectible toys of Oscar season, the "Consider" campaigns posters, are busting out. The first one up for inspection is the campaign for Warrior, the gritty MMA drama starring Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, and Nick Nolte. Let's take a look at the wordy one-sheet and see if it makes us feel any differently about its positioning in the Oscar index.
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What if Hollywood reformatted the plot of Mr. & Mrs. Smith from he-spy vs. she-spy to be he-spy vs. he-spy over the same she? Then you would have This Means War, the upcoming action comedy from McG which stars Tom Hardy (with his real accent!) and Chris Pine as two secret agents who go head-to-head after learning they are dating the same woman, played by Reese Witherspoon. Oh, and did I mention that This Means War also marks Chelsea Handler's live action blockbuster debut?
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There's a moment at the end of Gavin O'Connor's MMA drama Warrior in which two men who have been relentlessly beaten and pummeled in the octagon stand dripping with exhaustion, rivers of sweat mingling with the tears running down their faces. It doesn't matter that you can't tell the sweat from the tears; that's partly the point of Warrior anyway, which makes you feel every emotional wound just as acutely, if not more so, than the bruising, rib-crunching body blows. Yes, this is a mixed martial arts movie (distributed by genre specialists Lionsgate, no less). But it's also one of the most heart-wrenching and deeply felt films of the year.
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It's a curious version of the real pro wrestler Kurt Angle that you get from the ring persona he's projected over the years as a star of the WWE (née WWF) and now TNA Wrestling, where he's currently the reigning World Heavyweight Champion. The real-life former Olympic wrestler has played off his 1996 gold medal win as wrestling's bona fide "American Hero" since his 1998 WWF debut, juggling multiple wrestling companies and countless ring titles while a version of his own personal life, warped through the wrestling world's faux-realist backstage lens, is broadcast every week to millions of fans. But what Angle really wants to do -- what he wanted to do even before pro wrestling came calling -- is act. Seriously act.
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Warrior is serious. The Oscar-craving movie about mixed martial arts starring Tom Hardy, Nick Nolte, Joel Edgerton and a whole bunch of other fearsome types -- like real-life fighter Erik Apple and wrestling vet Kurt Angle -- is a full-throttle ride around the ropes. In this new clip, Hardy unseats a champ in just a few quick moves. Harsh as hell, and so good.
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