Monday, January 17, 2011

Auntie Anne

It wouldn’t be a night on the Tinseltown if scoop weren’t to be found, and last night’s Golden Globes delivered Glee’s latest casting coup.

Anne Hathaway reportedly pitched a role (which she has been mulling over for some time) to the powers that be, and – whaddya know – they said OK.

The self-confessed Gleek is set to guest as the lesbian aunt of Kurt, Chris Col...make that Golden Globe winner Chris Colfer’s beloved character.

I think Hathaway will do great...and I believe this will be the perfect warm-up for a bigger role in a musical all her own some time down the line. Something like a Liza biopic. Think about it – the resemblance is uncanny.

Photo: UsMagazine.com.
Seen and Heard and Won Around the Globes

Before I get into how predictable last night’s Golden Globes were, at least in the film categories, can I just say I thought Ricky Gervais killed – and got away with it – as the show’s host.

The guy delivered searing joke after searing joke and eviscerated everyone in the audience right in front of them (ouch, The Tourist), just like mommas everywhere say you shouldn’t. It was fun. And no, he didn’t go too far, considering how much further he could’ve taken it...although I would sleep with one eye open for a bit (you just don’t mess with the Scientologists).

Anyway, when it came to the winners, there were few surprises (The Social Network, Colin, Natalie, Christian, Melissa, and Annette all walked away with a Globe, while Paul Giamatti kinda stunned everyone when he bested Johnny Depp and Jake Gyllenhaal in the Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical category for the little-seen Barney’s Version).

On the TV side, Glee scored Best Comedy (really, over Modern Family!), while Katey Sagal finally earned FX’s Sons of Anarchy some awards lovin’. And The Good Wife walked away empty-handed yet again, although Julianna Margulies gets top marks for looking so frakkin’ beyond in vintage Yves Saint Laurent. And how touching was Chris Colfer’s reaction upon hearing his name when he won Best Supporting Actor for Glee? Only slightly less so than his moving speech I say.

My Twitter feed has my blow-by-blow impressions of the show, so if you’re at all interested, get!

And now, for the fashion.

I thought the best dressed of the evening was Emma Stone, who just dazzled in an elegant and simple peach Calvin Klein Collection dress. Girlfriend was a little too tanned, but she looked beautiful.

Anne Hathaway looked like a million bucks in her Armani Privé, and Olivia Wilde ever the princess in a Marchesa gown.

Sandra Bullock looked pretty, but those new bangs are a bit much, and she looked like she had left her hair brush at Ryan Reynolds’. Oh no, I did! Calm down, even though the two have been spending time together lately, she maintains they are just friends, so there.

As for the men, Chris Hemsworth was the most swoon-worthy, end o’ story.

Photo: EW.com.
TVS (Tender Vampire Sex)

Entertainment Weekly is making Twihards quite happy with its latest issue previewing what’s to come in 2011, particularly because of this exclusive first photo of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1.

Check out Bella and Edward (rumored real-life couple Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattison) sharing a bed as man and wife on their wedding night.

Looks intense and well-lit and oh-so-vampirically romantic, huh. So what was the motivation behind the scene?

“You want to live up to people’s expectations,” said director Bill Condon. “People take [the movie and characters] personally. When you are interpreting something you have a certain vision of how it will be. Sometimes it is a liberal interpretation, but you hope you get to the essence of something.”

Well see what the whole package looks like when the movie opens on Nov. 18.

Photo: EW.com.

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Critical Consensus

The Social Network was the best picture of the year that was, per last night’s Critic’s Choice Awards. Its David Fincher took home the Best Director award.

The cast of The Fighter won Best Ensemble, while Colin Firth (The King’s Speech), Natalie Portman (Black Swan), and The Fighter’s Christian Bale and Melissa Leo walked away with acting accolades.

Click here for a complete list of winners.

Photo: Columbia Pictures (The Social Network).
A Role Full of R-E-S-P-E-C-T

What Aretha Frankling wants Halle Berry has got it.

The singer has confirmed that the actress will play her in a long-in-the-works biopic

Could this be Berry’s Ray?

Photo: CelebrityBug.net.

Update: Ooh, hold the phone. Berry told Ryan Seacrest on the red carpet at the Golden Globes that since can’t sing she doesn’t think she could do Franklin justice.
Welcome Back, SMG

It’s what we’ve been waiting for, Buffy the Vampire Slayer: the return of Sarah Michelle Gellar.

The actress, who had a pilot set up at HBO a couple of years that didn’t go anywhere, has been out of limelight since becoming a mother almost two years ago.

Gellar’s ready to make a comeback to TV, though, and will star on a CBS pilot about a troubled young woman on the run who hides out by living her wealthy twin sister’s life, until she realizes her sibling’s life has a bounty on it as well.

In’erestin’....

Photo: Life.com.

Friday, January 14, 2011

In the (Outdoors) Bedroom

Last week, Maroon 5 frontman Adam Levine set the Web on fire when a provocative photo of himself and model-gf Anne V’s strategically placed hands surfaced for our enjoyment.

This week, the couple
shot a very sexy scene for the band’s next video – for their new single, “Never Gonna Leave This Bed” – out on the voyeuristic streets of L.A.

In bed.

In their sleepwear.

I’d say these two ought to get a room, but then again I am feasting on the
images they produce.

Gimme more!

Photo: EW.com.
Where’s the Love

The state of affairs is bleak in Blue Valentine, perhaps, the bestest sad movie I have ever seen.

Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams star as a young couple facing the dissolution of their six-year marriage as we, the audience, are allowed extended peeks at the early days of their once-loving relationship.

That was then and this...this is now.

Director Derek Cianfrance tells his story in non-chronological order, which only heightens the melancholy of his long-gestating project. This is the love story of Dean and Cindy, and theirs is the kind of love that has burnt bright and fast. Meant to last they were not, but meant to mean something...that they were.

Both Gosling and Williams are at the top of their game as two people so disillusioned with each other, with their relationship, there’s no denying it. Each has a longing for the other, but also a disdain that’s unmistakable. He, a house painter who doesn’t want (or need) more out of life, can’t understand why she can’t just be happy with what they have, with their family (they have a 6-year-old cute-as-a-button daughter), while, she, a nurse who still would like more (like, say, becoming the doctor she had set out to be at first), wishes he would get up and finally start living up to his potential.

They’re both flooded by those first few months when the world was their oyster, and on the fateful day we meet them, they are at a crossroads. Neither one knows it, but the events of the ensuing 24 hours or so will define their future. They will try to save their failing marriage, and they will find out some ugly truths along the way, including the fact that, sometimes, you can’t help but hurt the one you love.

Gosling and Williams’ awards-worthy portrait of the end feels, looks, and reads real.

The film was shot in sequence, from happy times to sad ones.

You can see the (d)evolution of the relationship, or help but be engrossed by it, and it’s a heartbreak of the most watchable sort...and that’s quite the incredible feat.

My Rating ****

Photo: The Weinstein Company.
The Return of the GDW

Stevie Nicks is back on the scene with some new material, and I love it.

The Gold Dust Woman’s latest solo album, In Your Dreams (her first in forever), will be released on May 3.

The CD is available for
pre-order and all pre orders come with a download of Nicks’ new single, “Secret Love,” for which I’ve already fallen.

Photo: RockALittle.com.
The Secret

It wouldn’t be the beginning of a new year if we didn’t have a feel-good indie to look forward to, right?

To fit the bill here comes Josh (TV’s How I Met Your Mother) Radnor’s Sundance-approved Happythankyoumoreplease.

The movie, which tells the story of a struggling writer (Radnor) and his circle of friends, all of whom seem to be on this gratitude-is-key-to-it-all bender, marks the actor’s screenwriting and directing debut and will begin hitting theaters on March 4.

I don’t know what it is, but I find the vibe of the whole thing tremendously appealing.

I think it’s the fact that the cast is mostly up-and-comers who aren’t yet plagued by the sort of trappings of fame that lands them on the pages of the weeklies, so they’re like, these blank slates waiting for us to color with appreciation.

I like that.

Check out the trailer and tell me I’m not onto something:

Good Going, Teddy

They sure are keeping Trevor Donovan busy over on 90210 now that his character, Teddy, has swung open the door of the closet.

Donovan is getting a new love interest in the form of newcomer Freddie Smith later this season, but first lover boy’s gonna run into a former prep school roommate that Teddy used to crush on during a Spring Break-themed episode.

And who’s the hunk playing this blast from the past, who may have a surprise announcement of his own?

That’d be Alan Ritchson, a.k.a. Smallville’s Aquaman.

Nice....

Photo: CeedSmith.blogspot.com.
Girl, Interrupted

It seems all Carey Mulligan does these days is work, work, look gorge, and work.

Good for her.

The actress will return to the New York stage (she was in the 2008 revival of The Seagull) in the spring in an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman’s 1961 film Through a Glass Darkly. The show will premiere off-Broadway on May 13. She’s set to play a young woman who loses her mind because of a psychiatric illness and spirals out of control during a vacation to Sweden with her husband, father, and brother.

“It’s an incredible descent into insanity,” Mulligan said. “It’s horribly scary and I have no idea what I’m going to do. Everyone wants to play someone with a problem.”

Sounds like a meaty part for a more than capable talent.

Break a leg, girl.

Photo: PowerSellerUnion.com.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Fun Bug

The Green Hornet – a friend of mine couldn’t believe I never watched the show when it was on the tube.

I had to remind this fellow I’m much younger than he (yah, by like, two-three years, he reminded me) to have caught the reruns, and that to me, Britt Reid would be the son of a prominent and respected Los Angeles media mogul, a spoiled schlub who would be happy to coast through life directionless...and a man who very much always will look like Seth Rogen.

And that, I don’t think, is such a bad thing.

By kicking off this emerald year at the movies (Green Lantern is still a-comin’) Rogen has accomplished what many before him (including George freakin’ Clooney, not to mention Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Wahlberg, and filmmakers like Kevin Smith and Quentin Tarantino) haven’t: to bring the 1930s-radio property-turned-1960s-TV program to the big screen. And he’s done a pretty good job that hits all its marks. Honest!

The movie, directed Michel (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) Gondry and written by Rogen with his Superbad partner and real-life BFF Evan Goldberg, pairs the actor with Taiwanese multi-hyphenate Jay Chou as his Kato. The two have an easy chemistry, but if there is anything that works against the duo that would be the fact that Chou dances circles around Rogen with the greatest of ease. He clearly is a big, big star in the East – it just oozes out of him, and by that I mean It.

Not that the movie doesn’t click, because it ultimately does as a piece of well-meaning, amusing, but misguided – tonally, that is – entertainment. There are some elements in the movie that are as cool as they are inconsistent and thus, random. Regardless, if you’re in the market for a mindless afternoon at the theater then look no further.

As the moneyed and spoiled, wild-party-at-The Standard-throwing Britt, Rogen is borderline aggro in that man-child way, but, y’ know, fun because he looks like one of the guys (Rogen trimmed down for the part, but he didn’t go for a full rip, keeping his Every Joe-ness intact).

Like I said earlier, Britt’s just going through the motions, excelling at being an heir and resenting his tough-love dad (Tom Wilkinson) for a sin of the past that made quite an impact on the poor guy and left him feeling unloved.

When his father dies a mysterious one, though, our eventual hero must take responsibility for the family business, which he does in his own manner while nurturing his burning desire to fulfill his perceived potential in the most out-there way he’s always entertained but never acted upon – by righting wrongs as a masked vigilante.

He strikes an unlikely friendship with one of his father’s more industrious and inventive employees, (that’d be Kato, he who soups up the ride known as the Black Beauty on which they get around), and together they set out to fight crime and something meaningful for the first time in their lives. Their method is unorthodox, to say the least. They decide to act like criminals themselves in order to get the attention of the true bad guys, chief among them the ruthless Chudnofsky (Oscar winner Christoph Waltz, dialing back his Inglourious Basterds persona just enough in a part that once belonged to Nicolas Cage), sorta to destroy evil from within, if you will.

With the help of Britt’s new secretary, Lenore Case (Cameron Diaz, effective but miscast in a too-small-for-her role), the Green Hornet and Kato begin hitting L.A.’s gritty underworld where it counts, setting the stage for a ridikolous but exciting showdown that you best believe you needn’t splurge on to watch in 3-D, for 2-D will do just fine.

This one’s so popcorn, so enjoy it.

My Rating ***

Photo: Sony Pictures.
What Up, Spidey!

Here we go.

The first image of Andrew Garfield as Spider-Man has hit the Internet, and boy does our friendly neighborhood webslinger look a tad...moody.

Well, it was to be expected. After all, Marc Webb’s reboot, due out in 2012, will be set in high school. Oy, the angst!

Garfield’s slender physique is definitely getting played up and not bulked up, like it was with Tobey Maguire, which kinda gives him and the character are more Regular Joe vibe, no?

Color me intrigued, alright, and well teased.

Photo: EW.com.
A Bit of Brontë in Our Lives

That Victorian staple Jane Eyre, a story I best remember as one of simmering passion, is coming to the big screen on March 11, and I for one cannot wait to see it.

That’s because it stars one of the most exciting young actresses out there, Mia Wasikowska, and that hot dish known as Michael Fassbender.

Check out the film’s trailer and tell me this adaptation doesn’t look like a must.

Photo: Collider.com.
Moving Fastly...Toward the Stage

Once, that indie gem I didn’t catch at a movie theater near me three years ago (but did, eventually, watch on DVD) is headed to Broadway.

Plans are underway to adapt the film for a potential fall debut.

The music and lyrics of film stars Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, of course, will be featured in the show, which is a no-brainer since their “Falling Slowly” won an Oscar for Best Original Song.

Like the original source material, the Great White Way will be treated to the beautiful relationship that blossoms in Dublin between a busker and a piano-playing young immigrant – and you best believe I will be making the trip to New York to see it.

Photo: Moviefone.com.
Lawyering Up

America Ferrera is Ugly Betty no more.

The actress is actually moving on from her star-making role rather nicely and into quite the grown-up territory with a three-episode guesting role on The Good Wife, one of my favorite TV shows.

Ferrera will play a grad student who catches the eye of Alan Cumming’s character, in the romantic way.

I gotta say, this piece of casting news has me super-excited...and it is just so true to the inspired choices the show makes on regular basis.

In other words, I totally don’t object.

Photo: WebHush.com.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Hacker Fashion

Behold, fans of the Millennium Trilogy – your first, super-stylish look at what Rooney Mara will look like as Lisbeth Salander in December’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is here courtesy of W.

The up-and-comer is on the cover of the fashion magazine’s Movie Issue out next month.

As the damaged hacker heroine, Mara rocks a jagged (Trend Alert?), black do, eyebrow and lip rings, and a chest tattoo declaring her character’s last name. Her hands are bloody. And she looks mighty cool.

Photo: People.com.
Simply Irresistible, Pt. 71

I have a confession: I’ve been resisting jumping on the Andrew Garfield bandwagon full on.

Alas, everything must change, and I am ready to take the leap and hang on for dear life.

I mean, have you seen the photos from his feature in Details? The newbie who would become Spider-Man has got it goin’ on!

Photo: E! Online.
Bella Leighton

Move, Blake Lively – Leighton Meester wants a piece of the fashion-plate pie.

The Country Strong starlet is a part of the new Missoni spring ad campaign, and girlfriend looks sweet, huh.

Photo: Vogue.it.
Us vs. Them

The battle is coming...the Battle: Los Angeles, that is.


This Aaron Eckhart-starring vehicle, an alien-invasion saga, looks like the s---, and I for one cannot wait until it opens on March 11.

Question is: Are we gonna make it?
A Message

Coldplay are in the studio, and Chris Martin wants us to know what to expect.

The band’s frontman has revealed that their fifth album will be a meditation on “love, addiction, OCD, and working for someone you don’t like.”

OMG, I totally am going to heart this one. Hard.

Martin also said that the new record will not be a traditional concept album but quite the personal work with a consistent set of themes.

“[It’s] a thinly veiled account of what happens within the group,” he said.

Photo: ClashMusic.com.