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Archive: August 2005 (1-10 of 195)

Aug 31 2005 10:32 PM ET

Trailer Blazer: Clooney, Theron, Bacon

17128__goodnight_l ComingSoon.net has links to several new trailers for heavy, issue-oriented, Oscar-baiting fall movies. They include:

- Good Night, and Good Luck (Oct. 7). After watching this trailer, I still can’t tell whether George Clooney’s recounting of the battle between CBS newsman Edward R. Murrow (David Strathairn, left) and Sen. Joseph McCarthy is going to be genuinely dramatic or merely self-congratulatory agitprop, but the black-and-white photography certainly looks handsome.

- North Country (Oct. 14). Monster meets Norma Rae meets Fargo. Charlize Theron de-glams and smudges up again to play a female miner who files a pioneering sexual harassment lawsuit against the company where chauvinist goons have mistreated her. Frances McDormand slips back into her Minnesota accent as Theron’s friend.

- Where the Truth Lies (Oct. 14). This film could still get an NC-17 rating (over a threesome scene involving Kevin Bacon, Colin Firth, and Rachel Blanchard), and this steamy clip will give you a good idea why. Alison Lohman plays a young reporter who gets way too close to her two subjects (Bacon and Firth), former partners in a successful Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis-like showbiz duo, whose careers ended when a woman (Blanchard) was found dead in their bathtub.

- Grandma’s Boy (Jan. 6, 2006). Okay, there’s actually nothing at all heavy or Oscar-worthy in this movie, but after watching these other clips, you’ll want the comic relief/palate cleanser of this Adam Sandler-produced comedy. This time, Sandler’s longtime movie sidekick Allen Covert steps out on his own, playing a 35-year-old forced to move in with his grandma (Doris Roberts) and her roommates (Shirley Jones and Shirley Knight). Covert seems to live up to his name; he’s not brazen enough to be the lead in this kind of movie, and I predict all his scenes will be stolen by Roberts and Jones. Nice to see Marie Barone and Mrs. Partridge keeping busy, though.

Aug 31 2005 08:57 PM ET

Tom Green resurfaces, for a good cause

by Gary Susman

Categories: Weblogs

145428__tom_l Except for a few glimpses onstage at the Toronto portion of Live 8, we haven’t seen much of Tom Green lately. According to the former MTV comic’s blog, he’s been writing, directing, and editing an indie documentary. He’s also joined with a handful of other celebs to post on Blog for Hope, an all-star blog created by Yahoo! and the American Cancer Society that invites its famous bloggers (including Green, Fran Drescher, Jill Eikenberry, Mary Hart, and Sam Donaldson) to share their experiences with cancer. Anyway, it’s nice to see Green burnishing his humanitarian credentials; in fact, he should probably win a Nobel Prize for not making a sequel to Freddy Got Fingered.

Aug 31 2005 08:15 PM ET

Spoiler alert! 'Lost' and 'Housewives'

by Gary Susman

Categories: Desperate Housewives, Lost

Well, we tried. For the Fall TV Preview issue, Entertainment Weekly interviewed the folks behind Lost and Desperate Housewives, looking for clues to how two of last season’s most compelling cliffhangers will be resolved, but the stars and producers were pretty cagey. Still, EW’s Jennifer Armstrong managed to pry a few secrets loose about Season 2 of Lost (premiering Sept. 21). Skip the next section if you don’t want to see the spoilers.

- What happened to young Walt (Malcolm David Kelley), kidnapped by The Others? Shannon (Maggie Grace) will spot him in the woods, but she’ll have a hard time convincing her friends that she’s not hallucinating.
- On the romance front, things will heat up between Claire (Emilie de Ravin) and Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), and between Shannon and Sayid (Naveen Andrews), while the arrival of Michelle Rodriguez’s character will likely send Kate (Evangeline Lilly) out of Jack’s (Matthew Fox) orbit, maybe toward Sawyer (Josh Holloway).
- The producers assure us that there will be ”more death.”
- And as for what’s in the hatch, we’ll find out during the premiere, though Terry O’Quinn (Locke) and the other stars hinted that the revelation will only raise more questions.

”My initial reaction was ‘That’s not huge enough,”’ O’Quinn says. ”But my second reaction was ‘How could it be, with all the buildup?”’ Fox is a bit more reassuring. ”It’s gonna blow your mind,” he promises. Then there’s Monaghan’s explanation: ”The thing about this show is it could be a bright yellow banana walking around with strawberries, and you’d be like, ‘Okay.’ It could’ve been Henry Kissinger playing tennis with Marilyn Monroe, and you’d be like, ‘Sure.’ Anything makes sense on this show.”

Over on Desperate Housewives, which returns Sept. 25, Marcia Cross (Bree) and creator Marc Cherry get EW’s Lynette Rice up to speed on what’s going to happen to the folks on Wisteria Lane, including newcomer Betty Applewhite (Alfre Woodard). A few mild spoilers after the jump.

(Read full post)

Aug 31 2005 07:03 PM ET

'The Apprentice': Martha speaks!

by Gary Susman

Categories: Martha Stewart, Reality TV

145428__ms_l Maybe the Apprentice: Martha Stewart mini-scandals, involving two contestants who already had strong ties to some Apprentice notables, stem from Stewart’s hands-off approach to personnel issues. Martha, hands-off? Yeah, right, hard to believe — but in the forthcoming Fall TV Preview issue of Entertainment Weekly, Stewart says that’s how she operates. (Warning: A spoiler in Stewart’s Q&A with EW’s Jessica Shaw excerpted below reveals the first task assigned to the Stewart wannabes.)

How is your managerial style different from that other Apprentice star, Donald Trump? It’s extremely different. First of all, I don’t ever remember having fired anyone.
Ever? I leave that to others.
So the boardroom won’t be a scary place? We don’t have a boardroom. We have a conference room. And we don’t work at night. We work during the day. Donald’s always there looking so hunched-over at night. At night I’m doing other things.
What’s the first task? It’s taking two well-known children’s stories, Jack and the Beanstalk and Hansel and Gretel, and adapting them for the modern child. The contestants had to rewrite the story, have an artist illustrate it, edit it, print, and promote, all in a very short amount of time. The children’s-book business is gigantic. I’m certainly an active proponent of that industry.

Let’s take a moment to note that Stewart’s ankle bracelet is due to come off today. At last, she’s free to turn her life around and become a productive member of society! Don’t look for the bracelet on eBay, though. ”Well, I paid for it, so I guess I get to keep it,” Stewart tells Shaw. ”It will go in the archive somewhere. I’m looking forward to that.”

Contrast Stewart’s hiring approach with that of the Donald, who tells the New York Times he handpicked 17 of the 18 contestants on his upcoming Apprentice season, which debuts Sept. 22, the day after Martha’s. (In fact, producer Mark Burnett falls on his sword and takes the blame for last season’s less than satisfying book-smart-vs.-street-smart casting dynamic.) Both the Times and the New York Post offer breakdowns of the career backgrounds of Trump’s new picks, who include an ex-stripper and a former Miss Oregon. Trump says he picked the latter, Jennifer Murphy, over the objection of the producers. ”They said she was too beautiful,” he tells the Times. ”I said, ‘Excuse me, there is no such thing as too beautiful.”’ Nice to know Trump won’t stand for discrimination against attractive people.

Aug 31 2005 02:51 PM ET

Deals: De Niro digs up Joe Pesci

by Gary Susman

Categories: Deals

8442__pesci_l - Joe Pesci (left) hasn’t made a movie since Lethal Weapon 4 in 1998, but his old pal Robert De Niro may have coaxed him back to the screen. According to FilmJerk.com, Pesci will join Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, and De Niro himself in The Good Shepherd, the movie De Niro is currently directing about the early years of the CIA. Pesci will reportedly play a small role as a crime boss; guess after seven years of inactivity, the GoodFellas and Casino star doesn’t want to stretch too much.

- Billy Crudup, who’s also in Good Shepherd, will follow that film with a role in Mission: Impossible 3. He’ll be working alongside former boss Tom Cruise, who produced Crudup’s starring role as track great Steve Prefontaine in Without Limits.

- Why wasn’t The Island a hit? Maybe its story of clones on the run needed to be a sex comedy. Cast with two men. Say, Ben Stiller and Jim Carrey. And directed by Jay Roach, who shot Stiller’s Fockers movies. Of course, then, it would have been Used Guys.

- Instead of waiting for seven to 20 years to make his next movie, Terrence Malick may go right back to work after the release this winter of The New World, his Pocahontas-John Smith retelling that stars Colin Farrell. The Thin Red Line director is in talks to reteam with Farrell for Tree of Life, which would shoot in January. No word on the film’s plot, but shooting would take place in India, where production partner Percept Picture Co. is based.

Aug 31 2005 02:21 PM ET

Ratings: 'Prison' is hot, Diddy's not

by Gary Susman

Categories: TV Ratings

153213__diddy_l ”Anything can happen,” Diddy said at the MTV Video Music Awards, though a 22 percent audience drop-off from last year is probably not what he had in mind. Just 8 million people watched the VMAs on Sunday, down from 10.3 million last year. To be fair, Katrina stole a lot of MTV’s thunder; some 7.4 million viewers were watching the three cable news networks’ hurricane coverage. Plus, that 8 million was still big enough to make the VMAs the most-watched non-sports program of the summer on basic cable.

One show that might have siphoned some viewers away from MTV was HBO’s Rome premiere. It drew 3.8 million, marking HBO’s best Nielsen numbers in more than a year. But will they come back next week? Rome’s audience wasn’t built in a day.

Meanwhile, Monday’s premiere of Prison Break drew 10.5 million viewers, the best summertime Monday numbers for Fox since 1998. It’ll be interesting to see how it does once other networks’ 9 p.m. Monday shows return to airing new episodes, or if the show is just keeping the seat warm until 24 comes back in January.

Aug 31 2005 01:25 PM ET

Hollywood responds to Katrina

by Gary Susman

Categories: Hurricane Katrina

Some stars will soon be stepping up to help fundraising efforts for Hurricane Katrina relief, as they did for tsunami relief drives a few months ago. New York’s WNBC is one of many local TV stations around the country airing impromptu telethons; the station says that some celebrities will appear on tonight’s broadcast and solicit pledges. (It’s not clear if other NBC stations will pick up this broadcast from the flagship, as they did with WNBC’s tsunami telethon in January, or just air their own fundraisers.) Proceeds will go the the American Red Cross. Meanwhile, MSNBC’s Jeannette Walls says music industry insiders and Red Cross officials are talking about a benefit ”mega-concert,” with Willie Nelson being mentioned as a possible participant.

Besides the disaster’s enormous human costs, Hollywood is feeling the effects of Katrina via a number of Louisiana film and TV shoots that had to shut down and evacuate. Among those features affected were Déjà Vu (starring Denzel Washington), The Reaping (Hilary Swank), The Guardian (Ashton Kutcher and Kevin Costner), and The Last Time (Brendan Fraser and Michael Keaton). Also forced to flee were Lucy Lawless (shooting the TV movie Vampire Bats) and Pat Sajak and Vanna White (Wheel of Fortune had been on a road trip to New Orleans). Along with the countless locals forced from their homes, the Hollywood crews on these shoots may not be able to return for a long time — or ever.

Aug 31 2005 12:56 PM ET

Britney Spears: Lounge Act?

by Gary Susman

Categories: Britney Spears

8442__britney_l Celine Dion, Barry Manilow, Britney Spears? According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the young mom-to-be is in talks for a long-term engagement at an unspecified Vegas casino. Ironic, since a Vegas casino was once the site of her three-hour engagement to Jason Alexander. Guess the place needs a way to keep the kids and teens who are too young to gamble occupied while their parents play the slots. By the way, the article reports that the same casino is negotiating a similar we’ll-believe-it-when-we-see-it deal with Britney’s former smooch partner, Madonna.

Aug 30 2005 09:05 PM ET

Trend Watch: Streaming entire albums

by Gary Susman

Categories: Download This

Lately, seems like many music stars are promoting their new albums by releasing them early — and in their entirety — for online streaming (good news if you hate waiting to snag a listening station at your local record store). Our coworkers at AOL Music are getting in on the action, in a big way: They’ve put a whopping 25 new CDs online, including some of fall’s most anticipated titles: Kanye West’s Late Registration, the Rolling Stones’ A Bigger Bang, Bob Dylan’s No Direction Home: The Soundtrack — The Bootleg Series Vol. 7, Brooks & Dunn’s Hillbilly Deluxe, Death Cab for Cutie’s Plans, Tony Yayo’s Thoughts of a Predicate Felon, Rihanna’s Music of the Sun, Herbie Hancock’s Possibilities (the jazz pianist’s Starbucks duets album), and the new releases from 30 Seconds to Mars, Cowboy Junkies, and Crazy Frog. Most of these will be around only until Sept. 6, so do your window shopping now.

Aug 30 2005 08:21 PM ET

Trailer Blazer: Is Jay Hernandez the new Al Pacino?

by Gary Susman

Categories: Movie Trailers

1522__carlito_l - Carlito’s Way: Rise to Power (Sept. 27) Um, was there really a great demand for a Carlito’s Way prequel? Here’s Jay Hernandez (near left), affecting a Pacino-esque rasp as the younger version of the Puerto Rican crimelord Pacino played in the 1993 film (far left). And here’s Diddy, looking sharp, contemporary, and anachronistic in a film set in the late ’60s.

- Stay (Oct. 21) Hmm, Ewan McGregor as sort of a bland everyman protagonist, Ryan Gosling as a potentially violent psychotic, and Naomi Watts as a maternal woman who knows a few things about ghosts — haven’t we seen all this before?

- Capote (Sept. 30). The beefy, baritone-voiced Philip Seymour Hoffman is about the last person I’d have cast as Truman Capote, but he sold me in this clip. This film, which focuses on how Capote came to write In Cold Blood, seems to portray the author as a man who casually and cannily toyed with people’s loyalties for his own ends. Looks fascinating, especially with Catherine Keener and Chris Cooper on board.