Amuse us by adding dialogue or a caption* to this first image of Peter Sarsgaard and Amanda Seyfried in Lovelace (2012)a biopic about the porn star of infamous Deep Throat fame.
The film will be directed by Oscar winning documentarian Rob Epstein and Emmy winner Jeffrey Friedman and will co-star Hank Azaria, Wes Bentley, James Franco, Demi Moore (as Gloria Steinem!), Robert Patrick, Eric Roberts, Sharon Stone and Juno Temple. [Note: This is not the same Linda Lovelace biopic that Lindsay Lohan was supposed to star in in one of those hallucinatory moments when it looked like she might get her shit together. That competing bio will star Malin Akerman.]
I said "Don't make me think about THAT!!!". I mean, I'd just shared my top ten list so I was still hooked up to an IV joy drip and he wanted me to focus on THAT. I couldn't do it! THAT would have to wait until tomorrow, I said.
But here we are in tomorrow and THAT is still whatever it is. So let's recap what's going on with the casting of the most important movie musical in the pipeline.
The Three Roles The Whole Thing Rests On Jean Valjean.......................... Hugh Jackman Inspector Javert .................... Russell Crowe Fantine ................................ Anne Hathaway
We know that Jackman and Hathaway have spectacular golden age quality movie musical voices and that all three of these movie stars can really act. That's a crucial thing since Les Misérables is actually an epic weepie and not the more commonly seen musical comedy. If "Bring Him Home" (Valjean) and "I Dreamed a Dream" (Fantine) don't ruin you emotionally, Les Miz will lose 87% of its dramatic potency.
Crowe? Have we heard him sing outside of rock music? Hooper is supposedly NOT doing this musical in the typical way of pre-recording and then lipsynching / acting later on. Instead, or so we hear though it sounds complicated given the chaotic milieu of the story, that the actors will actually be singing while they act. This might make for an electric movie experience (I mean the source material is already great) but who knows.
You may have heard that Ricky Gervais will be hosting the Golden Globes again. I don't have the stomach to give this its own post but let it suffice to say what I already said on twitter... Gervais smug superiority is so offputting. You have to back that shit up and was Gervais the funniest best awards show host ever? No.
Link Time Tom the Dancing Bug on Steven Spielberg's The Adventures of Tintin The Advocate fun interview with Dylan McDermott on American Horror Story, nude scenes and sexuality and Steel Magnolias Ad Age wowee but those Oscar ads are expensive. $1.6 million for 30 second of air time please. The Playlist the competing Linda Lovelace porn star biopics. It's Amanda Seyfried vs. Malin Akerman. You'd think that was an easy call but for the news that Sharon Stone will play Mama Lovelace in the Akerman version. Sharon Stone! Empire Will Amy Adams sign on to co-star with Clint Eastwood in The Curve, a father/daughter drama? He plays an aging baseball scout. We're betting that he won't be portrayed as indelicately as the "they're fossils!" approach in Moneyball. (A film we love, don't misunderstand. It's just hard on the old scouts.) BuzzFeed 63 Reasons why Bradley Cooper is not the "Sexiest Man Alive". No matter what People magazine says. Speaking of Bradley Cooper...
In Ye Olden Times when I used to watch Inside the Actors Studio I couldn't help but make immediate "you'll never make it!" assumptions about many of the audience members seeking professional advice. So it's totally crazy to see an actual future star asking one.
Puppet Mania Flickr Muppet illustrations covering the whole alphabet YouTube Clever Inglourious Basterds/Fantastic Mr Fox mashup
Finally, Drew McWeeney at HitFix had his son Toshi interview Kermit and Miss Piggy on the eve of the release of The Muppets. So cute...
It's a great angle for an interview since The Muppets biggest marketing muscle might well be partents taking their kids who missed out on the Muppet phenomenon to "meet" them on the big screen.
MTV Tom Hiddleson singing the praise of his new Thor 2 director Patty Jenkins. He just loves Monster (2003) and Kenneth Branagh assigned it to him as prep before Thor 1; how weirdly coincidental. Go Fug Yourself has kind words for Amanda Seyfried and hilarious words for Justin Timberlake. Awards Daily Sasha thinks this has been a weak year for cinema -- I'm guessing because of the lack of consensus on a single masterpiece. I'd say the opposite. I can't get over how good this year is. It's so exciting to be looking at an awards season that might not have a frontrunner. Consensus makes it boring. Bring on the passionate discussion of what is "Best" please!
Acidemic in praise of crazy "chicks of death" dangerous women from Flash Gordon (1936) through Rosemary's Baby (1968) to Trouble Every Day (2001) Reelizer How beautiful is this poster for The Iron Giant by Kevin Tong? Me want.
Movie Morlocks Kimberly from Cinebeats on Werner Herzog's excellent adapation of Nosferatu starring Klaus Kinski. Such a good movie. MNPP JA loves Carey Mulligan and thinks you do, too. Exciting projects she's lining up. /Film taking storyboarding to the next level with Darren Aronofsky's Noah's Arc movie.
Ultra Culture bitches about Rotten Tomatoes in order to praise Terri (which was recently nominated for one of Gotham's prizes) Towleroad Zachary Quinto to play a gay ghost on American Horror Story.
Empire offers up a final We Need To Talk About Kevin poster with "Joker" coloring. I love movie posters but when a movie makes this many and keeps changing it up I start to worry that they don't know what they're selling anymore.
Finally...
The Lost Boy thinks that Viola Davis is going to win the Best Actress Oscar. That seems to be going around. Here she is at the Women in Hollywood Awards.
The imagination is so potent. And that's really why we're actors because it's the power of transformation, the power of not being you, of going into a world that is different but ultimately real. And I always felt I had that I had that power even as a little black girl with the afro and using the crisco for moisturizer for my skin. I always felt that everything was possible. That I always had the power to be anything i wanted to be.
As I was walking the red carpet someone asked "What sets you apart from everyboy in the room?"
"Well... I'm black."
[Laughter] and then she launches into an honest and beautiful speech about Cicely Tyson "throwing her a rope" as a young dreaming girl and the need for stories about women of color in the movies. She is awesome.
Our annual awards jamboree went into an unexpected coma due to Oscar exhaustion but the film bitch awards are back as we try and really not just sorta wrap up the 2010 film year. So here are BEST POSTER, SEXPOT and DIVA OF THE YEAR featuring achievements from Cher, Joan Rivers, I Am Love, Fish Tank, Burlesque, Love and Other Drugs and yes even Alice in Wonderland (among other films).
So that's six pages down. One more to go. Woohoooooo almost finis! (Just in time for the NEW Oscar predictions for 2011 which always kick off in some form on April 1st ). We'll fill in the BEST SCENES next (final page) but I'm still debating various efforts, like this number below for Best Musical Number in a Non Musical Film.
Since not many of you saw Hrithik Roshan in Kites here's the film's best scene. Someone told me it was edited out for the US version of the movie (they released three versions I believe) which is in-san-it-y since there's plenty of unnecessary filler elsewhere in the movie (seriously you could lose like 10 minutes simply by shaving of 10 seconds from every scene involving long soulful gazes between Hrithik and Barbara Mori there are so many of them) and this is Hrithik's only musical number. And don't people buy tickets for his movies because of the dance numbers?
I could watch him dance for hours. So it's kind of annoying that the editing is so hyperactive. I mean his body is all the hyperactivity one needs, always locking, shaking, popping, flipping, swaying, slinking, swerving, slurving (I made that last word up) and busting out all over. Hrithik just missed the sexpot list. The sexiest people are, generally speaking, the ones who just exude carnality (Mila Kunis in Black Swan and Tom Hardy in Inception, hell-O) without every noticeably forcing the point. But since Hrithik is basically a superhero made flesh, one forgives most of the oversized everything so... almost! Here's hoping he gets another chance headlining an international effort like Kites, just a better one next time.
So, what'cha think of them divas? And I'll gladly take recommendations for the final categories: Action Sequence, Musical Moments, Kiss & Sex Scenes, Opening & Closing Scenes, Credits and just Best Moments in general.
Saturday, January 7, 2012 at 2:39PM 
