Review: The Hustle

by Samantha Craggs

The late great Gene Siskel had a litmus test: is this movie more interesting than a documentary of the same actors having lunch? In the case of Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson in The Hustle, the answer is a resounding no. The material keeps Hathaway at a fraction of her potential wattage, and Hollywood doesn't quite know what to do with Rebel Wilson yet.

The Hustle, in theatres now, is a remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, although the earlier film isn't required viewing. Hathaway plays Josephine Chesterfield, a skilled con artist with a too-affected British accent who uses her natural charm and willowy figure to swindle men out of money in a little French Riviera town. A police sergeant works with her – for a price, of course. And Chesterfield can pay it. She's made millions doing this.

In comes Wilson's Penny Rust, playing what we've come to know as the Rebel Wilson role...

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New Podcast: Poms, The Hustle, and Under the Silver Lake

by Murtada Elfadl and Nathaniel R

 

Index (50 minutes)
00:01 Diane Keaton and Jacki Weaver and Pam Grier (sort of) in Poms
10:30 David Robert Mitchell directs Andrew Garfield in bizarre red-herring filled hallucinatory noir called Under the Silver Lake
24:45 Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson in The Hustle 
34:00 Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir starring Tilda Swinton's daughter
40:22 Olivier Assayas' Non-Fiction
42:30 Ralph Fiennes's Nureyev biopic The White Crow
48:18 Bye for now! 

You can listen to the podcast here at the bottom of the post or download from iTunes. Continue the conversations in the comments, won't you? 

Poms, The Hustle

Would you rather?

It's our favorite Instagram pics of the week, courtesy of the celebs themselves, in reader survey form. Would you rather...

• have breakfast with Jake Gyllenhaal as Mysterio?
• enjoy a cocktail named after Helen Mirren with Helen Mirren?
• do Elizabeth Taylor cosplay with Gemma Chan?
• help Diane Keaton choose a hat?
• spot deals in Hollywood with Anne Hathaway?
• consider Bruce Campbell's unique face with Paddy Considine?
• give blood with Anna Kendrick?
• throw an axe with Arnold Schwarzenegger?
• hug it out with Ariana Grande & Julia Roberts?
• reminisce about your first Almodóvar movie... with two Pedros, Pascal and Almodóvar?
• hawk protein supplements with Zachary Levi? 
• wear the Tony nominations with pride on your body like Best Actress contender Caitlin Kinnunen (from The Prom)? 

Pictures are after the jump to help you decide

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Posterized: Anne Hathaway

by Nathaniel R

Anne Hathaway's latest star vehicle, The Hustle, a gender-flipped loose remake of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), debuted this weekend. We're happy to see her back when she belongs -- in a leading role on the big screen.

She's one of our greatest contemporary stars, the haters be damned. Thankfully the anti-Hathaway brigade has quieted down a bit after her savvy post-Oscar low profile. She started right at the top with the $100 million hit The Princess Diaries, a rare and delicious but precarious place to start as a teenager as there's usually only one way to go (you guessed it, down). But Hathaway proved resilient, weathering the rise to adult stardom with inarguable skill buoyed not just by remarkable beauty (those huge expressive eyes are a camera's dream) but by even more remarkable talent and versatility as an actor.

The star, now 36, has made 27 features. How many of her films have you seen? The poster are all after the jump...

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Rebel Anne

by Jason Adams

Rebel Wilson has a rom-com called Isn't It Romantic coming out this Friday with her starring opposite a dreamy Liam Hemsworth -- who was hilariously described on the film's red carpet last night by GLOW actress slash genius Betty Gilpin as a mixture of "Jesus & Brooke Shields," something I 'm never going to be able to un-see -- so what better time to drop the trailer for her next film, which has her starring opposite the dreamy Anne Hathaway? Sounding like a spin on Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (the spin being, uh, they're ladies, holla) say hello to The Hustle.

You don't have long to wait for The Hustle -- it's out in a short three months, on May 10th. Now y'all give me your own "Yes No Maybe So"'s in the comments, please...

Say A Prayer For "Serenity"

by Jason Adams

Although I don't think it's ever spoken in the film it's hard not to have the "Serenity Prayer" -- God grant me the serenity, wisdom, change, courage, check and etc -- echoing in your cavernous, more cavernous by the second, head while watching Serenity, writer-director Steven Knight's nervous-breakdown-put-to-film. Starring Matthew McConaughey as the hard-drinking and hard-sexing good ol' boy in paradise called Baker Dill (and really we all knew it was only a matter of time before Matthew McConaughey played a character called "Baker Dill" right?) watching Serenity is, well, an experience that calls for prayer. Any prayer. An exorcism, even.

I realize at this point, with these balls-deep references to demon possessions and nervous breakdowns, you're probably thinking that Serenity sounds like a miserable experience. It's not...

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