It's not too late to tune in to tomorrow's Pangea Day, an international film event on which short films contributed by people around the world will be broadcast live simultaneously. Pangea, a term you may remember from fifth grade geography (as Pangaea), was the name of the original recipe continent before the land mass split into extra tasty crispy America and Everywhere Else. The four-hour program begins at 2 p.m. EST. Watch it online or on TV, or on your high-tech video phoneor mosey on over a hosted event in your area. One of many trailers is below.
Chi-town rapper/actor Common's very cool upcoming album, Invincible Summer, has a much more synth-based sound than his last couple efforts — shiny circuitry in place of organic soul, you might say. (More on this in EW's summer music preview coverage, in print later this month.) But don't tell that to the character he'll be playing on-screen in the new Terminator sequel. According to Variety, Com's just been cast in T4as a human "freedom fighter," working closely with John Connor (Christian Bale) to take down those evil, murderous machines... so, probably not a guy who listens to a lot of mechanistic electro-rap.
But word! This almost makes up for that Ghostface/Iron Man snub. In all seriousness, this sounds great to me. I'm a fan of his music, of course, but I also thought he showed surprising sensitivity in his few American Gangster scenes last year, where he played one of Denzel Washington's brothers. What do you say? Bale's a pretty intense dude to share a screen with — think Common can hold his own alongside him?
Last month, a leaked copy of an early draft of the screenplay for Oliver Stone's George W. Bush biopic made the rounds, sending moviegoers and political junkies alike into paroxysms of speculation about just how Stone would depict the still-sitting president on film. Now we have some answers. In this week's EW cover story, we have an exclusive first look at the production of W, including interviews with stars Josh Brolin and Elizabeth Banks (pictured) and director/co-screenwriter Stone. In the article, the creators discuss the inevitable questions about the film's accuracy and fairness, the reluctance of almost everyone in Hollywood (right or left) to get involved in the project, the still ongoing search for an actor to play Dick Cheney, and the film's possible impact on the 2008 presidential election (the producers want Stone to rush the film into theaters by October — unlikely but not impossible).
Here's your chance, PopWatchers, to weigh in. Read the story, then tell us: Do you think the movie will be good? Will it be fair? Is it too soon to make a movie about the still-in-office president, or is it important to have a biopic out while he's still in power and on everyone's mind? Will W have any real-world impact? Do Brolin and Banks look like good fits to play George and Laura Bush? And given the president's current unpopularity, do you think many ticketbuyers will want to see W?
But we're getting ahead of ourselves here, because not only did Robert Downey Jr.'s Marvel movie boast a historic debut, it set a record of another sort when it paved the way for our Box Office Challenge's first-ever perfect prognostication. That's right: A whopping 24 players in our little game correctly predicted the exact order of the top 10 movies at the box office — Iron Man, Made of Honor, Baby Mama, Harold and Kumar, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, The Forbidden Kingdom, Nim's Island, Prom Night, 21, and 88 Minutes. Amazing! (The week's actual winner, "Chellrene," took top honors thanks to the tiebreaker, in which he/she saw a pretty accurate $90 mil debut in Iron Man's future.)
Anyway, here at EW, achievements like this don't go unrewarded. Just do what these folks did — and win the tiebreaker, if necessary — and you can go home with a bunch of free DVDs of your own. All you have to do is log into the Box Office Challenge; predict this week's top 10 rankings (Speed Racer — will it get a flat tire?) by Friday at 8 p.m. Eastern; and then, well, hope for the best.
Released on DVD today, P.S. I Love You (pictured), starring Hilary Swank and the ghost of Gerard Butler (Tonight, we karaoke in hell!), may be one of the worst romantic comedies in recent memory. It's so bad, in fact, that it inspired us to create this gallery of some of our least favorite rom-coms ever. Compiling this list provoked some heated arguments among your usually amiable EW.commers — after all, one viewer's gloppy, Cupid-forsaken mess is another viewer's cheesy delight. Inevitably, a lot of really rotten romances failed to make the cut. (For instance, I wish we'd found room for the appalling Milk Money, in which a small-town moppet fixes up widowed papa Ed Harris with hooker-on-the-lam Melanie Griffith.) Click through the gallery, then come back and tell us which reprehensible romantic comedies you'd add to the list.
Filmmaker Shane Meadows is not exactly a household name in America. At a Tribeca Film Festival panel, which he attended with screenwriter and collaborator Paul Fraser, Meadows was introduced as “one of the greatest British film directors whose films you haven’t seen.” But across the Atlantic, Meadows, 35, has spent the past decade making critically admired low-budget films which detail, both comically and dramatically, the working-class social landscape in which he was raised. Last year he scored a box office hit with his '80s-set feature about skinheads, This Is England. Meadows’ latest project, Somers Town, which screened at Tribeca, is another gritty tale -- albeit one that is technically an advert for Eurostar, the company which operates the high-speed rail link between London and Paris. Meadows is also a huge fan of short films, of which he has made around a hundred: he mentioned that he was even planning to make a spoof sci-fi movie the next day called The Baconator, inspired by Fraser having returned from a fast food emporium with a sandwich of that name.
After the jump, EW talks to the Meadows about whether or not he was joking about his hammy mini epic, the demented-sounding Hollywood projects he has turned down, and the violent event which made him think twice about pursuing a life of crime.
If you went to see Iron Man this past weekend, odds are you saw the full trailers for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and The Dark Knight, two sequels I couldn't be more excited to see. But after taking in what I was sure was going to be a double-barrelled shot of unvarnished awesomeness, I came away a little bit — to borrow from Dark Knight's Harvey Dent — of two minds.
The Indy trailer gave me exactly what that first spot failed to: a sense of respect for my love of the character. I didn't need to be reminded who Indiana Jones was, I just needed to see him bring the derring do. This time around, they nailed it — more info about the crystal skull, more Marian, and more running-and-jumping-and-blowing-stuff-up from a spry Harrison Ford. (There were dudes in the theater who applauded after the trailer ended. I was too busy GRINNING.)
On the other hand, The Dark Knight also gave us more--more of the story, more of the cast besides Heath Ledger--but I came away less impressed. It was less evocative than the first trailer; less thematic. I've still got a lot of faith that Christopher Nolan will deliver a splendid flick — Aaron Eckhart's Harvey Dent looked especially promising (considering that the character had been played previously by both Billy Dee Williams and Tommy Lee Jones, he's got no place to go but up).
But for me, these two were very much a case of one step forward, two steps back. (And, yes, you singing "Opposites Attract" is my own cruel Joker-y parting gift.)
What did you think? Still as jazzed as ever about these movies, or a little more cautious? And which one are you more stoked to see?
I went to see Iron Man this weekend, and liked it a lot more than I expected. One big reason? It didn't have just laughs and comic-geek thrills, but real, first-rate, non-F/X... acting! When Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, pulls Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts out onto the dancefloor for a little dipping and cooing, the rom-com byplay is superb.
Which made me connect a few movie-industry dots. Hey, remember the whining about the last Oscar telecast, with its low-wattage star vehicles and lower ratings, and all the hand-wringing the media, including EW, did over how to improve the Oscars? Here's a thought. Hey, Hollywood and the Motion Picture Academy: Take a closer squint at the big summer movies. Take them, ahem, seriously. As far as I'm concerned, Downey's performance should go on any short list that anyone draws up of potential Oscar nominees.
Oh, and another thought. Iron Man at my multiplex was preceded by a trailer for The Dark Knight. And if Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker is as good as these clips suggest — and my brain starts popping every time I see his deliriously committed, smeared-makeup personification of pure, nut-job Evilness — then we've got a potential Best Supporting Actor nominee that will be much more than just a sentimental gesture to a cherished, departed actor.
Iron Man and The Dark Knight as Oscar-worthy — think about it... seriously.
We get a lot of swag here at EW. Some of it rocks. Some of it is literally a rock. (Seriously. Last year, I received an actual rock the size of a baby and the weight of a toddler to promote a movie called Homo Erectus at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival — which EW doesn't even cover.) The whole idea, of course, is to goad us into writing about whatever the swag is designed to promote, but because we're all hardened, upstanding journalists here at this digest of all that is entertainment, we usually just use the stuff to decorate our offices instead. (Yep, still got that rock, so consider your money wisely spent, Homo Erectus PR firm!)
This month, however, I received three boxes stuffed with tie-in toys for three prospective May blockbusters, each more elaborately packaged than the last: Iron Man arrived about three weeks ago; then last week came Speed Racer and, a day later, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. All told, I suddenly had 20 separate items of swag inside my office, and because of the binding Journalism Rule of Three and Twenty, I had to do something other than pick out my favorites and give the rest to the office-mates who, um, have kids.
And so, in the tradition of my Transformers toy review last summer, over the course of this month, I'm going to review each box as its respective movie is released, rating them in categories of packaging, bounty, the coolest toy, the lamest toy, and the general feeling of swag overkill. So join me, won't you, after the jump, for a rundown of our first toy box: Iron Man.
Seems, random right? But I promise it’s not apropos of nothing. Tom Guiry (a.k.a. The Sandlot's Scotty Smalls) has a film at the Tribeca Film Festival titled Yonkers Joe, in which he plays a young guy with downs syndrome (pictured, right) whose hostility has gotten him kicked out of the institution where he lives. This means dad (Chazz Palminteri, left), a gambling con man, and dad's girlfriend (Christine Lahti) must take him back into their lives—and let’s just say, they have a lot to work out in their historically contentious father-son relationship. "It’s probably one of the hardest roles I’ve had," says Guiry, "just the fear I had of being able to pull it off." (In my humble opinion, he does.)
Aside from Yonkers, it just so happens that April was the 15th anniversary of The Sandlot, so for fun, Guiry and I began our afternoon yesterday at the Chelsea Piers batting cages to, you know, emulate The Babe. Get the full scoop, after the jump!
I was scanning through the armpit of my cable last night, and I came upon Ghost Rider, that very lamentable Nicolas Cage movie of last year. You remember: It came out in February and made a fortune, but no one you know will admit to have seeing it? That's the one.
Anyway, I'm watching and who should pop on screen but Wes Bentley (pictured), who broke out so memorably as the plastic-bag-filming teen in American Beauty and then promptly fizzled away into the entertainment ether... only to pop up as a clichéd demonic villain in a shoddy comic book flick. And it got me thinking about other breakouts that broke down: other movie stars that made a big splash, showed incredible promise, and then ended up in bargain-bin fodder.
I'll give you two more: Chris O'Donnell (he of Scent of a Woman and Batman & Robin, and not much since, besides some TV guest gigs) and Mira Sorvino (who won an Oscar in '96 for Mighty Aphrodite and then slipped off the map after 1999's Summer of Sam, popping up most recently in an episode of House).
Who else do you think fits the bill? Who lit up the sky for a brief, shining moment and promptly disappear before their true potential could be realized?
Forget Robert Downey Jr. Never mind that admittedly awesome trailer. The real reason I was looking forward to seeing Iron Man this weekend was, of course, Ghostface Killah's reported cameo. But word got out this week that the Wu-Tang rapper's character doesn't show up in the final cut.
Aw, man! Why'd they do Ghost like that? Seeing him and RDJ share "an exchange about lending each other yachts and Bentleys" whilst partying in Dubai would have meant so much to us fans. And Ghost really deserved this. By naming his first album Ironman and obsessively referring to himself as "Tony Starks" in song for the following decade, he singlehandedly made a second-string Marvel character cool again. (To a generation of kids who don't know from Sabbath, that is.)
And now, after a career's worth of pro bono product-placement work, Ghost gets bupkis. That SOHH story linked above says that director Jon Favreau made it up to him by commissioning an original Iron Man-themed rap song for the movie — which I guess could help salve the pain caused by his on-screen absence a little bit. In the meantime, I'll have to content myself with "We Made It" (below; lotsa NSFW language), a vintage Starks performance featuring what appears to be sampled dialogue from an old Iron Man cartoon. Anyone else wondering what a rapper's gotta do to score a cameo in a superhero movie?
The answer is not Idolatry. (Although, that would be amazing.) It's that the same man, Ted Kotcheff, who directed First Blood, also directed Weekend at Bernie's (!) and is now an executive producer on 200-episode-old Law & Order: SVU. That delights me more than I can say, which is why when I talked to Kotcheff for EW.com's gallery of SVU's Oscar-nominated guest stars, I had to ask him how exactly that happened.
"Well, I hate to be pigeonholed," he said. "I can do drama and action, and I can do comedy. People thought The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz with Richard Dreyfuss was a comedy. Certainly Fun with Dick and Jane [starring George Segal and Jane Fonda] was a social comedy. Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe? [with Segal and Jacqueline Bisset], and, of course, Weekend at Bernie's are comedies. There's nothing more satisfying than making an audience laugh. You go in the audience and you get concrete evidence. But at the same time, I'm interested in serious films about serious subjects. So the reason, I guess, is in my personality: I like both aspects of life, the comedic and the tragic."
How did he make the move from features to Law & Order: SVU, you might be wondering: His agent called and said Dick Wolf was looking for someone to help run a new series that he was calling Sex Crimes. Kotcheff knew nothing about episodic TV, so he asked his agent to get him a gig on another show so he could test it out. That ended up being CBS' short-lived 1998 drama Buddy Faro. I guess he liked it.
After the jump, Kotcheff shares a few stories about his hero Billy Wilder, just to make this audience laugh.
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler may have given birth to a No. 1 movie, Baby Mama, at the box office last weekend. But the conception comedy was also the parent of a sweet little gift for one EW.com reader — a DVD 4 pack, courtesy of our fun and exciting Box Office Challenge game!
As it happened, our players found last week's box office rankings particularly easy to predict: 43 percent of folks correctly projected that Baby Mama would bring home the bacon, and most people had the top four (Baby Mama, Harold and Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, The Forbidden Kingdom, and Forgetting Sarah Marshall) in the proper order. The ultimate victor, however, was one "tiggerpurple" — congrats, Tig! The current leader after two weeks is "ecrossetti."
Wanna match wits against Tig and Ecro in our little game, and get a shot at winning some DVDs along the way? Just click on over to the Box Office Challenge, weigh in on how you think this week's race will play out (Iron Man, hello?!), and be sure to file your picks by Saturday at 5 a.m. Eastern Time. And good luck!
A couple wed at the New York City premiere of Patrick Dempsey's romantic comedy, Made of Honor, on Monday night. I knew this was going to happen because I received an email from the menswear company Arnold Brant, saying it was clothing the groom in an Arnold Brant cashmere tux. Dempsey and costar Michelle Monaghan witnessed the nuptials — which Mary Hart officiated. Is this CRAZY or cool?
I mean, sure, it's a good way for the husband to be certain that his wife is committed to him (if she stared at Dempsey when she said "I do," I'm sure someone would've objected). It will be a good story to tell at parties for years to come. And Dempsey probably would have performed the African anteater ritual as a "wedding present," if you asked him to nicely.... Okay, maybe I just talked myself into it. (No, wait, not really.)
So, would you get married at a film premiere? And if so, who would you choose as your celebrity officiator?* (Not that I'm implying they chose Mary Hart.)
*Hey, I guess there was still an inane question left for me to ask on PopWatch!
Check out the third and final installment of my Just A Minute interview with the delightfully sarcastic Neil Patrick Harris. After a little good-natured Jason Segel trash-talking, NPH talks about his upcoming Joss Whedon web musical, Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, and answers — with one perfect word! — my favorite reader-submitted question (thanks, swarley!). Many thanks to you all for the fantastic suggestions.
I can't say the trailer for Earth, the first feature release from the Disneynature imprint, hypnotized me in quite the same way as that plastic bag did Wes Bentley's character in a certain Oscar-winning film, but I will say it's a rousing reminder that there's so much beauty in the world. (Get the high-def version here.) Seriously, that polar bear making a snow angel, and the baby bird leaping out of his nest, and that herd of antelope plunging into a river… I'm not the only one who's feeling all tingly and exhilarated, right?
p.s. Also, let's be honest: Any documentary featuring a shark and/or killer whale leaping out of the water to capture its prey is totally gonna rule.
p.p.s. Don't you love the way Patrick Stewart pronounces "year" as "yea'h," all classy-like?
Better yet: Do you have what it takes to win them? Okay then, prove it! Last week, EW.com's Box Office Challenge kicked off again after a winter hiatus, and the battle was fierce, the fighting pitched. The Forbidden Kingdom's big weekend win threw many for a loop: Some 66 percent of participants picked Forgetting Sarah Marshall to finish No. 1, while a shocking 8.2 percent picked certain loser88 Minutes to be victorious. That left the Jackie Chan-Jet Li summit as merely the third-most-popular selection in our little game. Still, a certain someone with the handle "Lwfalz23" took the crown, followed by a four-way tie for second place.
Think you can beat them — and everyone else who's playing along? Want to take home a DVD 4 pack if you, in fact, do emerge triumphant? Well then, take your best shot: This week's submissions are due no later than 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday. Now, have at it!
In retrospect, I really shoulda known better. I'd clicked through the bottom-of-the-barrel Rotten Tomatoes rating, the variouseruditebloggers slamming it, and, of course, my esteemed cubicle-neighbor Adam Markovitz's scathing D-grade review. But still, it had Ben Stein! He was funny in Ferris Bueller! And me, I have a slight glutton-for-punishment streak. So I succumbed to the
relentless TV ad campaign earlier this week and went to see a matinee showing of
the anti-evolution documentary Expelled. Worst decision ever.
Aside from its loony-fringe politics and sheer stupidity — think, for a moment, about how dumb you'd have to be to subtitle your deadly serious pseudo-science film "No Intelligence Allowed" — this movie is just excruciatingly bad from an aesthetic perspective. Imagine if the grating schoolteacher Stein played in Bueller got a whole movie to himself, and it was a holier-than-thou culture-war diatribe instead of a fizzy teen comedy, and also Stein's character was revealed to be an ignorant creep with a penchant for wildly inappropriate Holocaust references. Now I understand why Ferris wanted that day off so desperately!
Anyone else sit through this monstrous excuse for a movie? I stuck around for the whole thing, and never have 90 minutes felt longer. I actually started groaning and muttering at the screen when Stein shamelessly exploited the memory of the millions whom Hitler murdered — which, apparently, was Charles Darwin's fault somehow?! (Seriously, what was Stein thinking with that?) I'd apologize to the audience members who were irritated by my involuntary heckling, but there were only like four of them, and they were people who had paid money to see Expelled, so I don't really feel too bad. Anyway, take it from me: Do not see this movie under any circumstances. Not ironically, not so you can mock it in the footnotes of your Ph.D dissertation on molecular biology, not even because you think it might make a funny "I saw it, so you don't have to" blog item. And if you already made the mistake I did and subjected yourself to this stinker, go ahead and vent your feelings below — and please accept my condolences...
A. may cause dry mouth, nausea, and feelings of grimness. B. proves that Dane Cook has gotten the good end of a pact with Satan. C. is a great reminder to watch Overboard/Private Benjamin/Protocol on cable this week. D. makes you want to devote the next twelve hours to drunkenly banging out a cliché-filled romantic comedy script (preferably involving an unlikely "relationship fixer" character and a pratfall-filled wedding scene) which will free you from the drudgery of everyday work life and make you the toast of Hollywood. E. looks freakin' awesome.
I understand child actors have a right to make a living as adults, even take on the kind of edgy roles that will put distance between themselves and the adorable moppet characters that defined them when they were kids. But seriously? The Cosby Show's little Rudy playing a jailed prostitute who's "preyed upon by a large [female inmate] named Big Sal"?
If you could see my face right now, Keshia Knight Pulliam, it would look like this:
x x ___
Clearly, I don't think I can handle Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail. How 'bout you, PopWatchers? (Oh, and click here for a YouTube clip that is now officially on my Endangered Memories list. Blurg!)
Attention all you film fanatics: Think you know the movies? Our Box Office Challenge game is back for the spring movie season, and this time 'round we're offering prizes for the weekly winners. Predict the weekend's Box Office Top Ten, in order, for a chance to win a DVD 4 pack!
To play, just click here. Voting ends every Friday at 8 p.m., and the winners announced on PopWatch the following Wednesday, so be sure to check back then. Happy gaming, and good luck!
Last night, I saw a screening of the feel-good Sundance hit Son of Rambow (in theaters May 2). It's about two young British boys — one a misunderstood, movie-loving bully; one a member of a religious sect that shuns entertainment (!) — who set out to make a sequel to First Blood. It's set in the '80s, so you get a great soundtrack (my favorite Cure song, "Close to Me," plays over the end credits). And since it's really about the powerful imaginations and friendships we're capable of as children, you will also get weepy — and nostalgic.
According to Rambow's production notes, writer-director Garth Jennings actually did shoot Rambo-inspired action-adventures with his friends after seeing a pirated video copy of First Blood when he was young. "Our stories, stunts, and special effects were outrageous in both ambition and stupidity," he admits, "but we thought our films were fantastic."
Did you ever commandeer the family camcorder and shoot your own productions? I only did it once, in high school, when my friend Mark wanted to film a solo recreation of the "Like a Prayer" number from Madonna's Blond Ambition Tour. I remember walking into the bathroom, with the camera on, and saying "Oh...My...God," when I first saw him in his stuffed bra (underneath the black choir robe he'd borrowed from his church), putting on makeup and a somewhat sad, half-finished wig he'd made out of a rag mop. But the show had to go on... because my parents weren't gonna be gone all night. We dimmed the lights in the family room, lit a few candles, positioned our friends Amy and Susi as adoring audience members, and I pressed record. Mark was amazing, right up until minute six, when he got dizzy doing those spins, stumbled around the room, and fell to the floor. I'm amazed that my laughter didn't ruin the shot. I'd been standing on the couch, so I got a great angle. I wonder who has that tape now...
Why all the haterade poured on Sunrise? The 1927 silent classic was the target of a slur uttered by Cameron Diaz at this year's Oscars (in patter written by someone else), and now, it's getting slagged by Tom O'Neil at the Los Angeles Times' Gold Derby blog. Oscar expert O'Neil writes that he finally has seen Sunrise, which shared the first Best Picture Oscar with Wings in 1928, and he doesn't think it's all that. He slams its two-dimensional characters and thin plot and finds it not nearly as exciting as Wings, which had some thrilling aerial dogfight sequences.
Now, O'Neil is a fine awards-show historian and oddsmaker, but he reveals in this post that he's no movie critic. Sunrise does indeed have archetypal characters (they don't even have names) and minimal plotting because it's a freakin' parable. Sounds obvious, but it's a point that apparently eluded O'Neil. Sunrise isn't about plot and character, it's about intense human passions (love, betrayal, homicidal frenzy, mercy, redemption, reconciliation). It's also about the pleasures and terrors of modernity, the tension and uncertainty of an uncomplicated pastoral past giving way to an exciting but chaotic urban future. Mostly, it's about director F.W. Murnau's ability to convey complex emotional states through gorgeously realized silent black-and-white images. True, there are no airplane battles, but to dismiss Sunrise for that reason is like saying Monet's a dull artist because waterlilies and haystacks bore you.
I have nothing against challenging the conventional wisdom, but sometimes, that wisdom is conventional for a good reason. Elsewhere in the post, O'Neil praises The Crowd, another acknowledged masterpiece of 1927 that got robbed at the Oscars. So I know he cares about history, context, and quality filmmaking. I don't think he's furthering any of those causes with a gratuitous, uninformed rant about a movie that should be on the must-see-before-you-die list of everyone who cares about film.
What's a girl (Anna Faris) to do when she's kicked out of the Playboy Mansion? Apparently, she becomes the house mother of a sorority, gives the socially awkward sisters (including Katharine McPhee and Rumer Willis) makeovers, and dates Colin Hanks. She also makes me laugh more than Mike Myers did in The Love Guru trailer or Adam Sandler did in the You Don't Mess with the Zohan preview. Am I wrong?
I realize that the trailer for Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman's home-invasion horror flick, The Strangers (below), has been out for a bit, but I just saw it this weekend in front of Smart People and... I totally jumped in my seat. I won't ruin your viewing experience by revealing the shot that made me whimper, but I will ask you to share the trailers that frightened you. What's been the scariest? That's a beautiful thing, if you think about it: The ability to get us that wound up in two minutes...
For years, I've been mercilessly mocked by my friends for advocating a CD series called Now That's What I Call Cher!, which would essentially take the concept of Now That's What I Call Music, but instead compile the biggest radio hits of every era as covered by the Oscar-winning star of Moonstruck. This pitch is usually followed by me attempting to imitate Cher performing Guns N' Roses' "Paradise City" or Beyoncé's "Irreplaceable" or Gnarls Barkley's "Crazy," and everyone's stunned realization that, in fact, her throaty warble fits every genre perfectly! (Yes, this is the most embarrassing/gayest sentence I have ever written for PopWatch.)
Imagine my shock, then, when on a recent visit to Metafilter, I was directed to a YouTube video of Cher's version of West Side Story — in which she plays every single role. According to the folks at Just Plain Cher, the performance was part of a 1978 ABC special (called, naturally, Cher), and I hereby pass the insanity on to you all. Check out part one below, and part two (after the jump), and if you have any words to describe your feelings, do cher share them with your fellow PopWatchers.
I'm loving this bit from the wags at McSweeney's (hat tip to Movie City News), which reduces classic movies to their essences in just three lines of dialogue or less. It looked like fun to me, and I thought we should try it here, PopWatchers. Here, for instance, is The Sixth Sense:
HALEY JOEL OSMENT: I see dead people. BRUCE WILLIS: Don't worry, you'll be all right... BRUCE WILLIS: ... Oh.
After the jump, the entire Lord of the Rings trilogy in just three lines...
Yes, I'm asking you about the ending of a movie released in 1977. But really, you should be thankful because the other issues I'm dealing with at the moment are: 1) Why did CBS cancel Secret Talents of the Stars before we got to see Young and the Restless star Joshua Morrow's "edgy rock 'n' roll juggling" routine? (I was fully prepared to tune in to find out what made it "edgy.") 2) Why do I feel as though I could crush on C. Thomas Howell if I were to let myself tune in to VH1's Celebracadabra! later this month? 3) Did I like the shoes David Boreanaz was wearing this morning on Regis and Kelly? (They were awfully blue, but they did draw attention to his striped blue socks, which I appreciated.)
Right, so about Orca... Here's the thing: I just watched it (for work!), and though I've seen it before, I don't think I ever fully grasped the ending. As you recall, the killer whale wants vengeance against Captain Nolan (Richard Harris), the man who murdered his mate and unborn baby-whale, and lures his boat into icy waters. After the whale kills everyone onboard but Charlotte Rampling, the movie ends with shots of Orca swimming underneath thick layers of ice (above). Now Nolan pointed out earlier in the film that the ice would cut both ways: It could sink his boat, but it'd also make it difficult for the whale to get to the surface for air. So, I ask you: Was that just a beautiful parting shot, or are we supposed to believe that the whale dies, too? I'm going with the latter, because the whole film was about the bond between Nolan and the Orca (Nolan's wife and unborn child were killed by a drunk driver on the way to the hospital). And the whale was driven insane with grief, like Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon, only with no Danny Glover to talk him down. Also, the whale had to die for biting off Bo Derek's leg, right? It seems obvious when I type it out now, but then you also recall the serious smackdown that Orca gave a Great White shark earlier in the film, and that it broke through the ice several times after Nolan abandoned ship. Does he live or die?
If you're still reading (God bless you), and there's another movie ending that's puzzled you, post it in the comments section below. Maybe someone can help you out, too.
So last night, I'm talking with my friend Tamara about what film we should see this weekend, and she begins the negotiations with, "Would you see a Holocaust movie?" She meant, "Can we see The Counterfeiters?", but she didn't lead with the title because to her, it doesn't actually matter. She will watch any movie having to do the Holocaust: "If Paris Hilton was in a Holocaust movie, I'd see it." That is an actual quote.
After a brief discussion about how wrong it is that she found Ralph Fiennes attractive in Schindler's List (pictured) — I couldn't technically judgeher, having found Sean Penn inexplicably hot in Dead Man Walking — we realized that this is the flip-side to the 50 Actors We'd Watch in Anything. There are films we'll each see, regardless of who stars in them, because we're fascinated by a particular subject or are a sucker for a certain genre. So, what's your weakness? I can be talked into sitting through any romantic comedy — if the plot involves a city girl slowing her life down, returning to her hometown, or inheriting the children of a relative.
Also, should you want to confess that time that you found an actor or actress attractive in a role that you shouldn't have, feel free. You're among friends.
I mentioned earlier this week that I've already seen Keanu Reeves' latest, Street Kings (featuring Jay Mohr, Reeves, and Forest Whitaker, pictured). But I just clicked through our 24-film-deep role call gallery for the guy, and was shocked to realize that I've seen all but three of the movies. (More interesting than what those are, is what they're not: The Replacements, Sweet November, and The Lake House.) The point is, I never set out to be an expert on Keanu Reeves, but apparently, I kinda am. Have you experienced that? If so, with whom?
I was up late last night — chest cold-induced insomnia — and I happened to stumble across Pulp Fiction on some deep-on-the-dial cable channel. I've seen that movie at least 20 times, but since I couldn't sleep anyway, I kept it on. When we got to the Jack Rabbit Slim's dance contest, I propped myself up a bit — I'd forgotten just how magical a scene that is.
Part of it is how well-written it is, of course, but what really blows the doors off that scene is John Travolta. Dancing. Remember, when Pulp Fiction came out, he hadn't had his comeback yet. He hadn't worn out the "welcome back" we were happy to give him. He hadn't gone on to make The Punisher, Wild Hogs, or, that perennial punchline, Battlefield Earth. He hadn't done those awful things with his hair. He was just a faded icon, reaching for the life preserver that Quentin Tarantino threw him. But when he started to dance, when the old hip-swinger took off his shoes and found his groove, the screen just hummed with some kind of cinematic alchemy: a simple scene was transformed through nostalgia, through collective audience memory, into a mystical, magical movie moment.
This one in Pulp Fiction may be my favorite, but I've still got a lot of love for Jaws (where Chief Brody and his son are at the dinner table, and the kid mimics everything his worn-down dad does) and Pretty Woman (Julia Roberts' laugh when the jewelry box snaps at her fingers). What are yours?
Oh, you thought you had it bad when those screeching animated vermin infested our nation's movie theaters for a few weeks? Now Alvin and his cohorts are back, in a big way. Their soundtrack has been hanging around on Billboard's album-sales chart for a while; this week, just when they'd started slowly dropping into oblivion, they scurried back up into the top five. This distressing rebound was, apparently, a side effect of their DVD hitting stores last week — 'cause, y'know, if you're buying an atrocious movie you might as well buy its atrocious companion CD at the same time. The DVD, meanwhile, handily trounced Sweeney Todd to land atop that chart this week. Sweeney Todd, people! If these critters can beat back a homicidal singing barber that easily, how can we possibly stop them?
Look, I know kids dictate the big pop-cultural trends these days, but I
seriously fear for the future of our society if this inconceivably
grating cartoon is beating the competition in every possible form of
entertainment. It's like when Jennifer Lopez had the number one movie and album in the country, only (somewhat) more annoying. You tell me -- where will it all end?
I may be the only person at EW who genuinely, strongly dislikes most of Judd Apatow's oeuvre (except for Talladega Nights and Superbad, both of which I adore). I especially can't stand those ubiquitous billboards for the latest movie he's producing — "YOU SUCK SARAH MARSHALL," "YOU DO LOOK FAT IN THOSE JEANS, SARAH MARSHALL," pretty much any pithy, sorta-misogynist insult plus the name "Sarah Marshall". But you know what? I kinda love this new EW.com exclusive music video from "Infant Sorrow," the fake band fronted by Ms. Marshall's poser-y new boyfriend in the film.
I haven't laughed so hard at a vague, preachy pseudo-protest song since John Mayer's "Waiting on the World to Change"! Seriously, British comedian Russell Brand — prancing here as frontman "Aldous Snow" — had better get his own starring vehicle soon. EW.com also got a hold of some liner notes allegedly written by Snow, and, well, I'll let the man speak for himself: "This song is a manifesto — we literally do have to do something, and in this case I mean something constructive for the planet. In a way this is the least sexual song I've ever written — although it's still very sexual indeed, I'm hard now while writing this."
Okay then! On that note, how does "We've Got To Do Something" make you all feel?
Here's a sorta unusual list, counting down the 20 best feel-bad movies of the last 20 years. These are different from standard tearjerkers, movies that go for the melodramatic in order to elicit a cathartic sniffle; rather, these are movies with an essentially tragic view of life, yet which are full of the vitality of the human experience in even the most adverse and painful circumstances. I'm glad someone paid tribute to the oddly exhilarating, cleansing
feeling of despair one gets from watching an exquisitely crafted
downer, and it's particularly good to see shoutouts to The Sweet Hereafter, Igby Goes Down, Henry Fool, Safe, and Lilya 4-Ever. Still, how can you make a list of recent feel-bad movies without mentioning Neil LaBute (particularly Your Friends and Neighbors, pictured) or Todd Solondz or Lars von Trier? Where's Requiem for a Dream, or Maria Full of Grace, or Magnolia? List your favorite feel-bad movies below; you'll feel better, I promise.
According to this New York Times article, Hollywood is trying to figure out how to get more guys to buy tickets for chick flicks. Buried in the third-to-last paragraph, however, is an acknowledgment that the studios need to figure out how to attract female moviegoers as well, as ticket sales to younger women have slumped in recent years. Aside from The Devil Wears Prada (pictured), there are few recent chick flicks that have attracted a mass audience.
I blame formulaic scriptwriting. There's also been a lack of starpower, but folks will come if they like the story. (Case in point: The Notebook. Rachel McAdams wasn't a household name before that movie. She should have been one afterwards, but Hollywood has been slow to cultivate young actresses to whom Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock, and Meg Ryan can pass the torch.) Today's chick flicks lack clever plotting or sparkling dialogue, and they all look the same -- overlit tales of big-city career gals in well-appointed apartments with full shoe closets. I'm sorry to keep recommending Judd Apatow as an example, since his movies have their own problems with formula, but check out something like Knocked Up, which found a creative way to weave an entire movie out of a situation that's fairly ordinary and typical for women, and one that addressed women's concerns about parenthood and aging in a funny but not patronizing way. And the result was a romantic comedy that attracted both men and women, despite its lack of name stars. It can be done; just stretch outside the comfort zone.
Our reactions thus far to the still-in-post-production Repo! The Genetic Opera — the sung-through sci-fi/horror musical about organ donation and repossession, starring Paris Hilton, Anthony Stewart Head, Sarah Brightman, and Paul Sorvino — have ranged from bemusement to skepticism. Still, we have to give the film props for its retro-grimy Soviet-style poster art. You've probably seen the poster featuring Hilton popping up around the Web, but here's an exclusive look at the Sorvino one in full. Creepy, no? The film, currently in post-production, seems not to have a firm release date (Lionsgate will likely release it this fall), but you can track its progress on its official website and its MySpace page, where you can also hear some of the songs. I was hoping for a tune called "50 Ways to Lose Your Liver," but alas, no such luck.
So I went to see an advance screening of Street Kings, in theaters Friday, because I felt like I hadn't seen Keanu Reeves (pictured, right, with co-stars Chris Evans and The Game) in a while. (I told Josh Wolk that in the elevator, and he responded, "What, you didn't see The Lake House?" Clearly, he expected me to say no; obviously, I couldn't. I will never be able to resist Reeves as a romantic leading man. Just as Slezak will never be able to resist defending his performance in Sweet November.) Now, I'm not the target audience audience for a serious, violent cop flick — I prefer funny and violent. Nor do I typically seek out anything that involves Jay Mohr. But I enjoyed Street Kings. Particularly, when I spied Flavor of Love playing on a television in the background of a foot chase-through-a-house scene. It was the NSFW clip of Pumpkin spitting in New York's face. Keep an eye out for it.
That made me wonder what random visual references I might have missed in other movies. Let's all share one that we've caught. Judging from the box office, I'm guessing I'm the only one who noticed that Team America: World Police poster hanging in Simon Pegg's flat in Run Fat Boy Run. (If you saw my Q&A with Pegg, you know that was his way of apologizing for using a montage, a device that his buddies Trey Parker and Matt Stone had brilliantly skewered in Team America.)
I know I shouldn't be giving Uwe Boll (pictured) any more attention, but how can I avoid it when he makes it so easy? This time, the videogame-to-film auteur has responded to the near-universal contempt that critics and genre movie fans have for him by agreeing to quit making movies if an online petition drive calling for his retirement garners one million signatures. Don't know if he'll be as good as his word (though he certainly was when it came to taking on his critics in the boxing ring), but it's worth a try, no? At this writing, some 112,792 signers have called for an end to Boll's Bloodrayne of terror. You can help. Think of the children.
You know when you're at the movies, and after each trailer you see, you turn to the friend sitting next to you and say either yes, no, or maybe? (Or, is that just my movie buddy Karen and I?) War, Inc. is a definite yes. You've got John Cusack playing a comically morose hitman, a scene-stealing Joan Cusack yelling at him, and a story looking like it delivers: John Cusack, who co-wrote the script, is hired by a private corporation — run by a former U.S. Vice President (Dan Aykroyd) — that has occupied the country of Turaqistan and needs a Middle East oil minister to disappear. Somehow, his cover involves planning the wedding of Yonica Babyyeah (Hilary Duff), a Middle Eastern pop star who isn't afraid to put a scorpion down her pants (young-starlet-grows-up alert!), and wooing a journalist (Marisa Tomei).
So last night, I decided to watch When Harry Met Sally... because it'd been too long since I'd seen the Mr. Zero scene. (Billy Crystal and Bruno Kirby doing the wave while discussing Harry's divorce is cinematic perfection, is it not?) When I got to the part of the film where Sally (Meg Ryan) freaks out because her ex-boyfriend is getting married, I had the surreal experience of realizing that I am now the same age as Sally.
Sally: And I'm gonna be 40. Harry: When? Sally: Someday. Harry: In eight years. Sally: But it's there. It's just sitting there like this big dead end. And it's not the same for men. Charlie Chaplin had babies when he was 73. Harry: Yeah, but he was too old to pick 'em up.
I don't want this to be a pity-the-single-girl post, but as I find myself suddenly aware of what it means to be single in your early 30s (and deciding exactly how wrong it'd be for me to ask my sister, a divorce lawyer, to keep an eye out for a male client who has a civil relationship with his ex and a child who plays tee ball), I think it's a good time to ask which films and TV shows give singletons hope and which ones give us panic attacks. I'll admit that this is the first season that I've watched The Bachelor and felt a ping of fear: Are things that bad out there that women will sharpen their claws anytime a decent prospect appears?
In honor of Samantha Who?'s return tonight (ABC, 9:30 p.m. EDT) with the first of six new episodes, I phoned Barry Watson and asked him to help me dissect his long, crazy career. (Translation: I spent two days tracking down a photo of him in the 1996 made-for-TV movie Co-Ed Call Girl, because that's when his hair was "really flowin' good.") I hadn't read a lot of interviews with Watson, so I was worried that he wouldn't think having Baywatch on his resumé was as fabulous as I do. But I was wrong: He had just the right amount of pride in his voice when he explained that he was the first person to ever drown on the show. (Watch that episode promo.) He was also happy to talk about getting waxed for Sorority Boys. If you need another rationalization for your crush on Watson, here's a final offering: The only costar he mentioned having a crush on was Helen Mirren during the filming of Teaching Mrs. Tingle. "There's a scene where I'm getting manipulated by Mrs. Tingle, and that to me was a real sexy scene," he said (watch it below). "Helen kept kinda rubbing her foot on my leg, and I was like, Oh God, I've got a crush on this woman. Helen Mirren is like the sexiest woman on the planet to me. She is. Just the way she goes about everything — she's just sexy as all hell. Taylor Hackford [Mirren's husband] is a very lucky man. That's all I can say.'' Good boy.
As a lifelong horse racing fan, I know that it takes more than a first-class pedigree to produce a champion. But the combination of Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, Gael Garcia Bernal, Danny Glover, Sandra Oh and director Fernando Meirelles (The Constant Gardener, City of God) makes Blindness look like a pretty good bet for my must-see list come this fall.
And while we're on the subject, might I just add that I sometimes wish studios would only release teasers (like the one below), rather than those full-fledged, reveal-90-percent-of-the-plot trailers that inevitably pop up closer to the release date? I mean, really, all I need are hints of plot — the way the happy couple's morning routine is jolted by a sudden illness, shots of men in hazmat suits, that wince-inducing close-up of an eyedrop, Oh uttering the word "containment" — to convince me to shell out $11. Of course, maybe that's just the spoilerphobe in me speaking.
Either way, what's your feeling on the Blindness teaser? Have you seen enough to convince you to go (or not) when it hits theaters on October 3? Holla!
I met Charlton Heston only once, in 1996, but that brief interview cemented for me an admiring fondness for an actor whose politics I disagreed with, whose acting style I often found hammy and quaint, and yet who gave me and millions of other moviegoers enormous pleasure watching his performances over the years. At the time, Heston was promoting the film Alaska (pictured), directed by his son Fraser, a minor film that gave him a rare villainous role, which he bit into with his usual gusto. (Years later, I'm still tickled by his typically clenched-jaw reading of such lines as, "Magnificent creature, the polar bear. Nature's most perfect carnivore.") Heston was proud of his son's work and modest about his own, feeling that, at age 71, he was still just a working actor hoping to get it right one of these days. He talked about his recently completed role as the Player King in Kenneth Branagh's film version of Hamlet (and told a hilarious, unprintable story about one of his fellow cast members in that film, a tale made even funnier since I was essentially listening to the voice of God using the f-word). I asked why, at this stage of his career, with no more worlds to conquer, he'd take a walk-on role in a Shakespeare movie. He replied, again with that famously tightened jaw, "No actor with the brains God gave a goose would turn down the chance to waltz with the old gentleman from Avon." Yes, Heston really spoke that way. It was awesome.
All right, maybe he was putting me on a little; he certainly had the capacity to laugh at himself, as was evident from his self-parodic cameo in Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes remake, or his role as a crazy, trigger-happy coot in Town and Country. Even talking about politics, about which he was famously passionate, he was capable of being tongue-in-cheek. I asked him if he was going to stump for the Republicans in the 1996 election, and he said he might, but that right-leaning actors were generally leery of campaigning because they feared losing work in liberal Hollywood, just as outspoken leftists had during the Hollywood blacklist of the '50s. I told him that sounded disingenuous, especially since he was there at the time and would have remembered seeing film folk not just lose their jobs but sometimes even go to jail or flee the country; surely he didn't think conservatives in Hollywood faced similar peril in 1996, did he? Well, he replied, it still felt that way to him, and he asserted, "There are more conservatives in the closet in Hollywood than there are homosexuals." "You've used that line before, haven't you," I said. "Yes, it's a good line, isn't it?" Now, I don't think Heston had anything against gays or anyone else; back in the '60s, he'd been an active Hollywood supporter of the civil rights movement and had joined Martin Luther King's march on Washington in 1963. Rather, whether Heston was campaigning for the National Rifle Association or selling a character to moviegoers, he was a showman first, an entertainer, and he knew how to please a crowd and play to an audience.
Last night’s premiere of Wong Kar-Wai's My Blueberry Nights was more starry-bright than blue-hued. The director's much-anticipated film, which follows a heartbroken woman (Norah Jones) as she traverses across a dreamlike America and encounters a multitude of colorful, sad-sack characters, is Wong Kar-Wai's first English-speaking effort. Fittingly, an international vibe prevailed at New York's Tribeca Grand Hotel, where the screening took place. Seemingly everyone in Asia’s elite — including Ang Lee, Ziyi Zhang, Vivienne Tam, and Anna Sui — were in attendance, as were members of the film's impossibly attractive cast, such as Jones, singer Chan Marshall (both pictured), and actor David Strathairn.
Introducing the film, Harvey Weinstein reminisced about the first time he saw Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express — Miramax distributed the film in the States in 1996 — then cheekily championed sponsor IWC's watches. “I will make sure that it gets into every photograph!” he said, lifting up his arm. Wong Kar-Wai thanked the crowd graciously. Co-stars Jones and Marshall exchanged notes on what it was like working with Jude Law, giggling, “I kissed him first!” (Marshall) and “But I kissed him twice!” (Jones) before hugging each other. (Both singers make their theatrical debut in the film, although Marshall's cameo as Law's estranged girlfriend was written in at the last minute.) Meanwhile, Strathairn humbly spoke about what an honor it was to star in the film, before joking that the auteur's hazy cinematography were actually a side effect of Wong Kar-Wai's trademark sunglasses.
Caught having a good time at the after-party at the SoHo Grand penthouse, Jones said, “In music videos I just have to be myself; [it] is almost more uncomfortable than pretending to be somebody else, which is almost liberating.” But overall? “I like my day job.”
With baseball season upon us, Sports Illustrated has drafted 10 of the most memorable onscreen ballplayers in movie history to its fantasy team. (Eleven, if you count groupie Jessica Biel from Summer Catch.) Great minds think alike, as we've just brought back our own gallery of the 10 best movie ballplayers, and there's a lot of overlap. One player-to-be-named-later who didn't make either of our lists — but should h
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Chi-town rapper/actor Common's very cool upcoming album, Invincible Summer, has a much more synth-based sound than his last couple efforts — shiny circuitry in place of organic soul, you might say. (More on this in EW's summer music preview coverage, in print later this month.) But don't tell that to the character he'll be playing on-screen in the new Terminator sequel. According to Variety, 
Last month, a leaked copy of 
In case you haven't heard, 
Released on DVD today, 
Filmmaker Shane Meadows is not exactly a household name in America. At a Tribeca Film Festival panel, which he attended with screenwriter and collaborator Paul Fraser, Meadows was introduced as “one of the greatest British film directors whose films you haven’t seen.” But across the Atlantic, Meadows, 35, has spent the past decade making critically admired low-budget films which detail, both comically and dramatically, the working-class social landscape in which he was raised. Last year he scored a box office hit with his '80s-set feature about skinheads, This Is England. Meadows’ latest project, Somers Town, which screened at Tribeca, is another gritty tale -- albeit one that is technically an advert for Eurostar, the company which operates the high-speed rail link between London and Paris. Meadows is also a huge fan of short films, of which he has made around a hundred: he mentioned that he was even planning to make a spoof sci-fi movie the next day called The Baconator, inspired by Fraser having returned from a fast food emporium with a sandwich of that name. 
I went to see Iron Man this weekend, and liked it a lot more than I expected. One big reason? It didn't have just laughs and comic-geek thrills, but real, first-rate, non-F/X... acting! When Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, pulls Gwyneth Paltrow's Pepper Potts out onto the dancefloor for a little dipping and cooing, the rom-com byplay is superb. 
We get a lot of swag here at EW. Some of it rocks. Some of it is literally a rock. (Seriously. Last year, I received an actual rock the size of a baby and the weight of a toddler to promote a movie called Homo Erectus at the 2007 Slamdance Film Festival — which EW doesn't even cover.) The whole idea, of course, is to goad us into writing about whatever the swag is designed to promote, but because we're all hardened, upstanding journalists here at this digest of all that is entertainment, we usually just use the stuff to decorate our offices instead. (Yep, still got that rock, so consider your money wisely spent, Homo Erectus PR firm!)
Seems, random right? But I promise it’s not apropos of nothing. Tom Guiry (a.k.a. The Sandlot's Scotty Smalls) has a film at the Tribeca Film Festival titled Yonkers Joe, in which he plays a young guy with downs syndrome (pictured, right) whose hostility has gotten him kicked out of the institution where he lives. This means dad (Chazz Palminteri, left), a gambling con man, and dad's girlfriend (Christine Lahti) must take him back into their lives—and let’s just say, they have a lot to work out in their historically contentious father-son relationship. "It’s probably one of the hardest roles I’ve had," says Guiry, "just the fear I had of being able to pull it off." (In my humble opinion, he does.)
I was scanning through the armpit of my cable last night, and I came upon Ghost Rider, that very lamentable Nicolas Cage movie of last year. You remember: It came out in February and made a fortune, but no one you know will admit to have seeing it? That's the one.
Forget Robert Downey Jr. Never mind that admittedly 
The answer is not Idolatry. (Although, that would be amazing.) It's that the same man, 
Tina Fey and Amy Poehler may have given birth to a No. 1 movie, Baby Mama, 
A couple wed at the New York City premiere of Patrick Dempsey's romantic comedy, 
Better yet: Do you have what it takes to win them? Okay then, prove it! Last week, 
In retrospect, I really shoulda known better. I'd clicked through the bottom-of-the-barrel 
I understand child actors have a right to make a living as adults, even take on the kind of edgy roles that will put distance between themselves and the adorable moppet characters that defined them when they were kids. But seriously? The Cosby Show's little Rudy playing a jailed prostitute who's "preyed upon by a large [female inmate] named Big Sal"? 
Last night, I saw a screening of the feel-good Sundance hit 
Why all the haterade poured on Sunrise? The 1927 silent classic was the target of a slur uttered by 
I'm loving 
Yes, I'm asking you about the ending of 
So last night, I'm talking with my friend Tamara about what film we should see this weekend, and she begins the negotiations with, "Would you see a Holocaust movie?" She meant, "Can we see 
I mentioned 
Oh, you thought you had it bad when those screeching animated vermin 
Here's a sorta unusual list, counting down 
According to 
Our reactions thus far to the still-in-post-production Repo! The Genetic Opera — the sung-through sci-fi/horror musical about organ donation and repossession, starring 
So I went to see an advance screening of 
I know I shouldn't be giving 
So last night, I decided to watch When Harry Met Sally... because it'd been too long since I'd seen 
I met 
Last night’s premiere of Wong Kar-Wai's My Blueberry Nights was more starry-bright than blue-hued. The director's much-anticipated film, which follows a heartbroken woman (Norah Jones) as she traverses across a dreamlike America and encounters a multitude of colorful, sad-sack characters, is Wong Kar-Wai's first English-speaking effort. Fittingly, an international vibe prevailed at New York's Tribeca Grand Hotel, where the screening took place. Seemingly everyone in Asia’s elite — including Ang Lee, Ziyi Zhang, Vivienne Tam, and Anna Sui — were in attendance, as were members of the film's impossibly attractive cast, such as Jones, singer Chan Marshall (both pictured), and actor David Strathairn.
With baseball season upon us,