Lou Reed and company

You have to know Lou Reed was maybe my first teenage crush (on par with James Dean, Matthew Broderick in "Ferris Bueller's day off" and a long etc.) Always protected behind his sunglasses and his skeptical rictus, he had a deadpan quality that seduced me into listening to his songs; in back-alley terms, he wrote about people, as Lester Bangs observed "about whom nobody else gives a shit". So I'd like to compare him with some of my current crushes (Jake, Michael Cera and Joseph Gordon-Levitt).

Jake in a photoshoot for "Dazed & Confused Magazine". Michael Cera in "Clark & Michael" series.Also I'd compare Michael with Jon Arbuckle, the friend of Garfield, isn't he exactly as Bleeker in this vignette?

But coming back to Mr. Reed, Joe Gordon-Levitt as Brendan was cold as a frozen hell:In these pictures below, they are in company of attractive women (blonde and red-haired ladies):Lou Reed with Deborah Harry.
"I love women, I think they're great. They're a solace to the world in a terrible state" -Lou Reed lyics in "Women".Alison Lohman and Jake.
"The most important job for a man is to find the right woman"
-Jake Gyllenhaal. Michael Cera and Aviva.
"One thing I like to do is respecting women" -Michael Cera.Isla Fisher and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
“Few things are more erotic than a woman speaking in a French accent.” -Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Toronto Film Festival

"The curtain is slowly being drawn back on the Toronto International Film Festival and a hometown hero is among the actors in the spotlight.

Brampton's Michael Cera (Juno) stars in Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, a romantic comedy about an unlikely pair's wild night in New York.

The movie was one of four world premieres and two North American premieres announced as part of the Special Presentations lineup at TIFF, Sept. 4 to 13.

Cera will be at TIFF to promote the film, a studio source confirmed.

"We're trying to stay away from that (Juno) word, but it's hard to avoid," laughed TIFF co-director Cameron Bailey when asked if Nick and Norah will garner the same buzz as Juno, which had its premiere as a Special Presentation at TIFF last year.

"It has a great, hip soundtrack, very funny, a great romantic comedy," added Bailey, who likens it to Martin Scorsese's 1985 comedy After Hours". Source: www.thestar.com

TIFF ANNOUNCES HIGH PROFILE SPECIAL PRESENTATIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

Toronto – The Toronto International Film Festival is pleased to announce the addition of six Special Presentations to the programming lineup for TIFF08, running September 4 to 13. Included are works from critically acclaimed filmmakers Kathryn Bigelow, Spike Lee and Paolo Sorrentino featuring performances by John Malkovich, Viggo Mortensen, Ralph Fiennes, Guy Pearce, John Leguizamo, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Michael Cera. The official website for the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, tiff08.ca, is now live. Ticket packages for TIFF08 will be available for purchase by Visa† cardholders as of 10 a.m., Monday, July 7, 2008, and by cash, debit or Visa as of 10 a.m. on Monday, July 14, 2008. Purchase online at tiff08.ca, by phone at 416-968-FILM or 1-877-968-FILM or in person at the Festival Box Office at Manulife Centre, 55 Bloor Street West (main floor, north entrance). Box Office hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Monday to Saturday.

Good Vicente Amorim, United Kingdom/Germany
World Premiere
John Halder (Viggo Mortensen) is a good, decent individual with family problems: a neurotic wife, two demanding children and a mother suffering from senile dementia. A literature professor in the 1930s, Halder explores his personal circumstances in a novel advocating compassionate euthanasia. When the book is unexpectedly enlisted by powerful political figures in support of government propaganda, Halder finds his career rising in an optimistic current of nationalism and prosperity. Seemingly inconsequential decisions lead to choices, which lead to more choices...with devastating effect. Directed by Vicente Amorim (The Middle of the World, TIFF 2003), Good also stars Jason Isaacs, Jodie Whittaker, Mark Strong and Gemma Jones.
Miracle at St. Anna Spike Lee, USA
World Premiere
Directed by Spike Lee from a screenplay written by James McBride, the author of the acclaimed novel of the same name, the film chronicles the story of four black American soldiers who are members of the US Army as part of the all-black 92nd “Buffalo Soldier” Division stationed in Tuscany, Italy, during World War II. They experience the tragedy and triumph of the war as they find themselves trapped behind enemy lines and separated from their unit after one of them risks his life to save an Italian boy. Starring Derek Luke, Michael Ealy, Laz Alonso, Omar Benson Miller, Matteo Sciabordi, John Leguizamo and Joseph Gordon Levitt, Miracle at St. Anna explores a deeply inspiring story that transcends national boundaries, race and class to touch the goodness within us all.

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist Peter Sollett, USA
World Premiere
Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a comedy about two people thrust together for one hilarious, sleepless night of adventure in a world of mix tapes, late-night living and live, loud music. Nick (Michael Cera) frequents New York’s indie rock scene nursing a broken heart and a vague ability to play the bass. Norah (Kat Dennings) is questioning pretty much all of her assumptions about the world. Though they have nothing in common except for their taste in music, their chance encounter leads to an all-night quest to find a legendary band’s secret show and ends up becoming the first date in a romance that could change both their lives". Source: twitchfilm.net

25 funniest American people

The 25 Funniest People in America:

25. AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS

Burroughs’ best-selling memoir Running with Scissors — about being raised by a nutso shrink who studies his poo and rents the back shed to a pedophile — is unbelievably disturbing. And sidesplitting. At first we felt guilty giggling at his adventures with an electroshock therapy machine, but Burroughs knows that laughter is the best antidepressant. Much better than booze, which the author struggles to kick in his equally effervescent follow-up, Dry.

24. CATHERINE O’HARA

After her run on SCTV in the late ’70s, Hollywood didn’t know what to do with O’Hara. Fortunately, Christopher Guest did. In Waiting for Guffman, she and Fred Willard are tracksuit-wearing answers to Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire; in Best in Show, she’s a onetime floozy with a prize terrier and a torrid past; and in A Mighty Wind, O’Hara shows off a subtler comic touch, proving that humor doesn’t always mean a pie in the face.
23. SARAH SILVERMAN

The Lenny Bruce of the 21st century might be this hot, foul-mouthed, button-punching stand-up. Silverman is ruthlessly funny about topics like sex, the Holocaust, and 9/11, which may be why The Sarah Silverman Program has a permanent slot on our DVR. Oh, and if you hadn’t heard, she’s f—ing Matt Damon.

22. DAVE CHAPPELLE

The fact that Diamond Dave is all but absent from the comedic stage these days doesn’t invalidate his funny. After all, Chappelle’s revered Comedy Central show — on which the wiry comic gleefully engaged in crass T&A humor, swore like a sailor, and mocked everyone in the multiculti rainbow, confronting race in a way that is positively Pryor-esque — is still the best sketch comedy this country has seen in more than a decade. For that alone, he deserves a spot on any list like this.

21. DEMETRI MARTIN

You know what’s funny? Palindromes and anagrams. ”Shut up, Grandma,” you say, but we say shut up yourself and watch Demetri Martin work a stand-up mic. ”A drunk driver’s very dangerous. Everybody knows that. But so is a drunk backseat driver — if he’s persuasive.” The floppy-haired heir to Steven Wright won a prestigious award at last year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe, taking him from the comedy underground to…the comedy slightly less underground.
20. DIABLO CODY

Not to be partial, but the newly minted Oscar winner showed off her comedic — and emotional — chops with her debut screenplay for Juno. Did we mention it won an Oscar?

19. CRAIG FERGUSON

Late night is the province of the mono-name. Jay! Dave! Conan! Then there’s that Scottish guy, two-name ID required: Craig Ferguson. You know, the one who can’t quite be pinned down. Since taking over CBS’ Late Late Show from Craig Kilborn in 2005, Ferguson has brought a fresh burst of energy to the format. He’s reinvented the opening monologue, doing away with most of the topical jokes and just ad-libbing about his life. Along with fresh energy, he’s brought something else — ratings. Ferguson, 45 and a brand-spanking-new U.S. Citizen, doesn’t get as much media attention as time-slot competitors Jimmy Kimmel or Conan, but with an audience of just under 2 million, the great Scot outperforms the former and has climbed within 500,000 viewers of the latter.
18. JACK BLACK

Black is an entirely new classification of human: the frenetic slacker. Before his turn as doofus band reject/inspirational teacher Dewey Finn in School of Rock, he was the Ritalin-deprived half of Tenacious D (along with his partner, Kyle Gass) and the list-obsessed record-shop shlub in High Fidelity. He is, inarguably, the coolest fusion of music and comedy since Spinal Tap. (And, if Tropic Thunder is as good as we’ve been led to believe, we’ll forgive him that whole Nacho Libre business.)

17. DAVID LETTERMAN

With a receding hairline and a jogger’s grim jowls, Dave is no one’s idea of a hip comic, and he likes it that way. New-school gone old-school, the upstart who first pumped irony into the talk show still rails against the stupidity of the powerful and yet has the charm to melt Julia Roberts.

16. AMY SEDARIS AND DAVID SEDARIS

Big brother is the best-selling author of the sublime autobiographical essay collections Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked, full of terrific riffs about stuff like his cuckoo-clock North Carolina clan and his midget guitar teacher. Little sis was the rubber-faced star of Comedy Central’s truly strange Strangers With Candy, as well as coauthor of the book Wigfield.

15. WILL FERRELL

See, there’s this man-child who latches onto Will Ferrell in most every role he plays — and good luck getting the little guy to let go. As a result, we are treated to inspired displays of dolt-trapped-in-the-headlights hijinks, be it in the form of Old School’s keghead Frank the Tank (who goes from repressed to regressed to undressed) or Talladega Nights’ Ricky Bobby, the dumbest, most earnest NASCAR driver on the circuit — who’s also the most comfortable with his sexuality.
14. RICKY GERVAIS

Okay, so he doesn’t spend all that much of his time in America. We don’t care. Whether as the creator of The Office and Extras, a supporting actor in movies like For Your Consideration or Night at the Museum, or doing killer stand-up (as seen most recently in Grand Theft Auto IV), he’s still as funny as the dog’s bollocks.

13. ELLEN DEGENERES

DeGeneres, whose career seemed all but kaput a few years ago, has earned back adoration simply by being her affably dry self on the Emmy-winning The Ellen DeGeneres Show. Whether it’s her circuitous monologues, her deadpan celebrity interviews, or that vocal turn as Dory in Finding Nemo, she remains one of the cleanest, coolest funny ladies around.

12. DAVID CROSS

All conversations about his genius start here: Along with Bob Odenkirk, he created the cunning HBO sketch series Mr. Show, which routinely put SNL to silly shame. And not only does Cross work little miracles in supporting roles (remember his role as feckless freak-job Tobias on Fox’s Arrested Development?), he can drop some pretty fearsome stand-up (who else talks about being raped by the Virgin Mary?). Simply put, this dude never kowtows for his funny.

11. CONAN O’BRIEN

Smarty-pants isn’t usually a compliment, but O’Brien wears them so well. When this Harvard geek isn’t riffing on Muammar Gaddafi in his monologue, he’s making absurd innovations in low-brow comedy. Now, let’s see if those absurd innovations will play on The Tonight Show….

10. KRISTEN WIIG

The Saturday Night Live scene-stealer has found her stride in her third season, thanks to breakout characters like the Target clerk and the obsessively competitive Penelope, as well as spot-on impressions of Jamie Lee Curtis and Suze Orman.

9. LARRY DAVID

Because he’s a balding, neurotic, self-consumed, multimillionaire malcontent who reacts to most social interactions as if he just took a whiff of some really bad cheese. Because the only thing he hates more than these situations is himself. Because he’s the most hilariously doomed white-guy antihero we’ve ever seen, and has no problems taking on every sacred cow. Because we have no idea how much of this Larry David — from the HBO comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm — is swiped from the real Larry David. And because both Larry Davids co-created one of the best comedies ever, Seinfeld.

8. AMY POEHLER AND WILL ARNETT

The funniest married couple on the list. (Sorry, Judd Apatow and Leslie Mann.) When they’re apart (she, on Saturday Night Live and in Baby Mama; he, late of Arrested Development and currently guesting on 30 Rock), they’re great. But when they’re together, as when they played brother-and sister figure skaters in Blades of Glory, they’re resplendent. So let’s get those crazy kids together more often, shall we?

7. MATT STONE AND TREY PARKER

Now in their eleventh season of South Park, these potty mouths with a purpose continue to remind us what full creative control gets you: moments so wrong, they’re right (Ben Affleck falling in love with Cartman’s hand comes to mind). Added bonus: The ninth season episode, ”Trapped in the Closet” contains the most sober explanation of the background of Scientology you’ll ever hear.

6. CHRIS ROCK

Television failed him (Saturday Night Live didn’t know what to do with his bright-bulb humor, and his HBO talk show couldn’t contain him). The movies didn’t get him (though this is as much Rock’s fault as anyone’s, given he wrote and directed his most recent starring vehicles, the underperforming Head of State and I Think I Love My Wife). But on the stage, Rock is a man on a mission, mercilessly tackling race, religion, money, and relationships. And his missionaries are legion.

5. STEVE CARELL

Sometimes, it hurts so good. The pain, the discomfort, the agony of watching Carell’s Michael Scott work himself into another awkward scenario on NBC’s The Office…and almost work himself out. And the fact that we don’t hate Michael — on the contrary, we feel a warm, chocolatey pity for him — is a testament to Carell, who leavens the bald incompetence with wide-eyed awe.

4. JON STEWART AND THE ‘DAILY SHOW’ TEAM

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart is the most consistent laugh machine on TV — and the only news source for scores of cynics and slackers. It’s not often that a comedy show can tackle politics, embrace a cogent point of view, and still maintain its anarchic spark. The scribes at The Daily Show pull it off four nights a week. As the heart and soul of the show, Stewart is evenhanded but never meek; as an interviewer, he can make his guests comfortable even as he’s taking them apart. Then there’s his gang of ”correspondents,” who soldier straight-facedly into the great American absurd and take no prisoners. Empirically speaking, there’s nothing funny about what’s going on in the world right now. Yet here we are each week, chortling.
3. TINA FEY

It takes a certain self-confidence to play a woman who accidentally dates her third cousin, erroneously assumes her neighbor is a terrorist, and gets called the C-word by a colleague (especially when said character is based on you). ”I love going to those uncomfortable places,” says Fey, who stars as 30 Rock’s workaholic TV maven and is also the NBC show’s creator and exec producer. ”I’ll go down any weird avenue.” Maybe this year’s surprise Emmy win for best comedy will empower Fey to pursue some dreams for her alter ego. ”Liz Lemon could do an international adoption for a Russian baby and get the paperwork wrong with the European dates and somehow end up with a huge, muscular 13-year-old. Yeah, I could see that.” Hopefully we will too.

2. STEPHEN COLBERT AND THE ‘COLBERT REPORT’ TEAM

The once (and, we’re sure, future) presidential nominee, author, and dedicated windbag also happens to be one of the smartest satirists working today. Heck, if all the dude had on his resume was the legendary 2006 White House Correspondents Dinner, he’d go down in comedy history. But week-in and week-out, Colbert takes aim at the political-industrial complex — and I don’t care if there’s no such term — and spins the facts into truth. Or truthiness. Whichever’s easier.
1. THE JUDD APATOW POSSE

Can you even remember what movie comedy looked like before writer-director-producer Judd Apatow and his ever-expanding comedy clan (including Seth Rogen, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill, and Paul Rudd) came along last summer with two stiff shots of cathartic humor — the oops-she’s-preggers romp Knocked Up and the high school raunchfest Superbad? Today, when studio execs have a comedy that feels flat or formulaic, the call goes out to ”Judd it up” — sweet irony for a man once best known for critically beloved flops like TV’s Freaks and Geeks. ”It was always my dream to become a verb,” Apatow deadpans. ”That’s what I wrote in my high school yearbook.”

Source: gone-hollywood.com

Tracey fragments

"If you're in Boston, Houston, or Cleveland, you get a chance to check out THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS on the big screen.

If you live in Boston, you have two more days to catch Tracey over at the highly esteemed (and for good reason) Brattle Theater. Tickets are available here: https://www.vendini.com (and while you're there, don't forget to pick up tickets for a July 10th double feature of Polanski's THE TENANT and REPULSION, and probably best to make an appointment with your therapist afterward to heal your shattered nerves).

If you live in Houston, now's the time! Tracey starts tonight at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, in their state-of-the-art Brown Auditorium. She'll be around for one show per day- but hurry, because the last show is Saturday night. Tickets are available here: Source: www.mfah.org (and while you're there- On August 6th, they've got Wong Kar Wei's DAYS OF BEING WILD, which absolutely demands a big screen viewing).

On Saturday, July 5 at 9:40pm, and Sunday, July 6th at 7pm,, be at the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, sit down in their plush seats, and let Tracey take you on a nice, dark ride. Tickets are available at the venue (and with 616 seats, no need to worry about a sellout), and you should most certainly pick up some tickets to the hip-hop breakin' documentary, PLANET B-BOY.
For those of you in Toronto who have missed The Tracey Fragments in it's big screen awesomeness, or just want a chance to see it again and catch up with the director Bruce McDonald.

Come out this SUNDAY JULY 6TH to THE ROYAL - 9.15pm
608 College Street. DVD Launch - Giveaways of DVDs (with bonus features including interviews on the set with Ellen Page and Bruce McDonald), the original soundtrack album - featuring new music by Broken Social Scene, comic books and even a few of the exclusive and impossible to buy anywhere Posters!

ALSO - a special screening of the some of the finalists and winning entries of the Tracey: Re-Fragmented contest, cut from footage of the film.

and FINALLY, a special sneak peek at something new from director Bruce McDonald".

The Tracey Fragments is available on DVD everywhere JULY 8th: Source: www.amazon.ca

Summer Glasses.

Katherine Heigl on holiday in Mexico.
Kate Hudson and Lance Armstrong.

Kirsten Dunst.


Winona Ryder.

Living in 'Notting Hill'

"Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal are reportedly living together in Notting Hill.

Witherspoon, who finalised her divorce from Ryan Phillippe earlier this month, is keen to spend more time with the Brokeback Mountain actor, according to US reports.

A source said: "[Reese] loves England and has been really looking forward to spending this time living with Jake."

Gyllenhaal is apparently residing in a £1.9 million property in West London. He is currently filming scenes for his new movie Prince of Persia: The Sands Of Time".
Source: www.digitalspy.co.uk

Living in a box

"Juke Box Blues" Love Song

Artist: Reese Witherspoon
Song: Jukebox Blues

"I walked into a honkey tonkey just the other day
I droped a nickle in the juke box just to hear it play
I didnt have no tune in mind, I didnt wait to choose
Just droped a nickle in the slot and I played the juke box blues

Theres a guy in there with an old tin horn
And a feller on an old banjo, and the man of the fiddle
He wasn't no slouch he could really drag that bow
Well, the man on the fiddle he must have got tired
I didnt hear him say, 'cause he cut loose on the steel guitar
And the juke box ran away
And I've herd something going strong
It must have been a drum
It gave that song a solid beat
Boy it was goin' some

I walked into a honkey tonkey just the other day
I droped a nickle in the juke box just to hear it play
I didnt have no tune in mind, I didnt wait to choose
Just droped a nickle in the slot and I played the juke box blues

I've played alot of juke boxes, most everyone in town
That's the first tune I've ever heard
That can make one night surround
Play the juke box blues, such a rythum I've never heard
I danced out both of my shoes"

"Walk the Line" soundtrack

"Norma and Arthur Lewis, a suburban couple with a young child, receive a simple wooden box as a gift, which bears fatal and irrevocable consequences. A mysterious stranger, delivers the message that the box promises to bestow upon its owner $1 million with the press of a button. But, pressing this button will simultaneously cause the death of another human being somewhere in the world; someone they don't know. With just 24 hours to have the box in their possession, Norma and Arthur find themselves in the cross-hairs of a startling moral dilemma and must face the true nature of their humanity".
Source: www.imdb.com Filmmaker Richard Kelly prides himself on thinking so far outside the box that major chunks of the Internet are devoted to deconstructing his intentionally murky movies. His desire to bewilder has earned him a certified cult classic (2001's Donnie Darko) and an unmitigated flop (2007's Southland Tales), but no direct hit.For his third big-screen feat, the 32-year-old USC film-school grad is not only thinking inside the box. He is actually making The Box, complete with his first major studio (Warner Bros.) and an A-list star (Cameron Diaz) on board.God bless Cameron Diaz. The second she signed on, our lives changed in a great way", Kelly says on location at NASA's Langley Research Center. Wrapping up the film's final week, he spent a long day shooting inside a cavernous wind tunnel and atop a gantry, a 240-foot-high erector-set-style structure once used to train Apollo astronauts.

Unlike his previous efforts, the sci-fi-tinged thriller is a breeze to summarize. Its plot hook is inspired by a 1986 Twilight Zone episode that haunted Kelly as a kid: A couple (Diaz and James Marsden) open their door to find a box containing a button. If they push it, they will receive $1 million. The catch? Someone they don't know will die."We made Donnie Darko when we were 25, so obviously that has an innocence about it," he says of his unnerving high-school fable made with producer pal Sean McKittrick. The political satire Southland Tales, on DVD March 18, "is punk rock and rebellious. We love that about it." Still, the film was barely in theaters, grossing only $273,420 on a nearly $18 million budget. "There is no place for small movies to catch fire," he says. "We got with Warner Bros. as a means of survival."

He is ready to go commercial. "With The Box, I hope to make a more mainstream popcorn film."

Of course, nothing is ever quite that simple in a Richard Kelly film. Richard Matheson's original 1970 short story, Button, Button, is just a jumping-off point for the $30 million morality tale. Embellishments include '70s kitsch, teleporting and the 1976 Viking mission to Mars.

"We don't feel like we are watering ourselves down," Kelly assures.

The man who delivers the title container? Masterfully creepy Frank Langella. "Richard is in a league of his own," the veteran actor says. "He has sort of an extraterrestrial creature running around in his head. That is what Steven Spielberg was like as a young boy". Source: www.usatoday.com
"I watched 'The Prestige' on a little box that can show moving pictures on a bright screen, the same little box that I am now using to display the words I am typing, words that I can effortlessly move around by pushing a button and spinning a ball. It is powered by alternating current. Alternating current was developed by Nikola Tesla".The duplication machine in 'The Prestige' is miraculous, yes. But it is really no more impressive than any of the miracles Tesla did bring about. We now take those for granted, so the story invents a new one, one by which we will be appropriately awed, the way we should be awed every time we turn on the radio".

English breakfast

"Looks like things are heating up between Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal with a full English breakfast on the menu.

According to US reports Witherspoon, 32, has slipped under our radar and has moved in to Jake’s London home – yes London, in Notting Hill!

Brokeback Mountain’s Jake, 27, is reportedly filming scenes from his new film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time over here.

Apparently she has taken a four month break to be with her man with one mole revealing, she ‘loves England and has been really looking forward to spending this time living with Jake.’

Source: www.metro.co.uk

Interview to Maggie (The Dark Knight)

The new Batman movie The Dark Knight is out in New Zealand at the end of July, with its world premiere on July 14 in New York.

Film3's Kate Rodger is in Los Angeles for a sneaky early screening, and to talk with Batman and the Dark Knight team about the new movie.

Watch this video of the interview with Maggie Gyllenhaal on The Dark Knight

Source: www.3news.co.nz

The Dark Knight Trailer 5:

New affiliate: Seth Rogen Online

Now Jake Weird has a new affiliate with Seth Rogen Online, devoted to this funny Canadian actor who starred in "Knocked up" as Ben Stone. Watch this video dedicated to Mr. Rogen (with scenes of him in "Knocked up", "The 40 years old virgin" and "Superbad"):

Me loving you in Weirdland

Moving to London?

"Jake Gyllenhaal has quietly moved into Reese Witherspoon’s $5 million L.A. home, reports Us Weekly.

“Jake keeps his things at Reese’s house and uses it at his home base most of the time,” an insider reveals. “They literally don’t want to spend any time away from each other.”

But with Reese’s daughter Ava, 8, and son Deacon, 3, the couple has to be careful.

“Reese is very content with where things are right now,” a Witherspoon pal says. “She has her career, her kids and a fantastic relationship. [And] she has been careful to work in Jake into her childrens’ lives slowly. She knows her kids already have a daddy.”
Source: Justjared.buzznet.com

Indie is falling

"Unfortunately, most of the folks trying to make indie movies these days, as was revealed at my film financing panel Saturday (including producer Cathy Schulman, ICM's Hal Sadoff and New Bridge Capital's Danny Mandel), seem to be trying to make genre thrillers with someone on the list of not-too-costly actors between the age of 20 and 30 who foreign sales agents want to sell in territories around the world (where interest in American product seems to be drying up). Quality dramas are a no-go, said Schulman, although that's what she's trying to make at Mandalay Indie. And the surviving specialty distribs are strictly cherry-picking. You might get your movie made. But it might go straight-to-video. And it wouldn't be worth as much as it might have been a few years ago. [...] I know I don’t have to repeat all the ways that the independent film business is in trouble. But I’m going to do it anyway—because the accumulation of bad news is kind of awe-inspiring:

1: Picturehouse and Warner Independent have been shut down.

2: New Line’s staff was cut by 90 percent, and the survivors were sent to hell...I mean...Burbank.

3: Paramount Vantage was folded into the mother ship (this one may not be all bad news, by the way, but it still scares the hell out of independent film people).

4: Sidney Kimmel shrunk his company in half.

5: ThinkFilm is being sued for not paying its advertising bills, even as the unions repeatedly close down their David O. Russell production with the prophetic title “Nailed” for failure to meet weekly payroll.

6: Another five companies are in serious financial peril. And those are only the ones I’m sure of.

7: The $18 billion that Wall Street poured into Hollywood over the past four years has slowed to a trickle, and shows no signs of being replaced at even remotely the same levels from any new source.

8: There’s a glut of films: 5000 movies got made last year. Of those, 603 got released theatrically here. And there’s not room in the market—as there used to be—for even 400 of those.

Maybe there’s room for 300. So everything else just dies. Most of these pictures are pre-ordained flops from independent distributors who forgot that their odds would have been better if they’d converted their money into quarters and taken the all-night party bus to Vegas.

9: Advertising costs have radically outpaced inflation even as media delivery of audiences falls through the floor. So movie companies now enjoy the privilege of paying way more to be far less effective marketers.

10: Movies now routinely fight with really compelling leisure alternatives that nobody in the last great era of cinema—the 1970s—even imagined: from ipods to Xboxes to tivos to you tubes to the radically improved behemoth that is cable television.

11: The international marketplace may be growing dramatically, but all of that growth is eaten up by studio movies, a couple dozen top independent films, and burgeoning local language productions. Everything else we make in this country doesn’t sell for less—as it has for the past 20-plus years. Now, most American independent films don’t sell at all overseas. I’ve never seen more depressed people in my life than I did in Cannes last month. The phrase “worst market ever” could be heard from every corner. A lot of film market veterans were musing about never coming back. It’s that bad out there.

12: One entertainment industry banker I know believes another 10 independent film financiers will exit the business in the next year. I think he’s low.

And finally, just for bad luck:

13: The average cost of an independent film released theatrically in North America shot up dramatically last year (not as much perhaps as the 60% the MPAA reported for its member companies, but a lot nonetheless). And this of course makes it a hell of a lot harder to break even or squeak out a small return and stay in business".

Read the whole article in weblogs.variety.com

Michael Cera (Sweet Darling)

Maggie, Peter and Ramona

Maggie Gyllenhaaal, Peter Sarsgaard and their adorable daughter Ramona enjoyed a sunny afternoon in Venice, California yesterday. Since, The Dark Knight is set to release soon, I imagine we'll be seeing a lot more of Maggie and her family. Have to admit I am EXTREMELY excited about the new Batman movie. Christian Bale owns a little piece of my heart.

Photos by Bauer Griffin
Source: www.imnotobsessed.com

Emotive stamp

-Joe Nast: I think you have some mail here.
-Bertie: You think?
-I mean that I'm that I'm looking for.
-Any thing special you had in mind?
-Wedding invitations.
-You want'em back?
-I do.
-What did you forget to lick the stamps? All right.
Joe Nast: [voiceover] Dear Bertie, You asked me before where I went. And I want to tell you. I went to a place where nothing's right, where every moment's backwards, every sky's without colour, without hope. I tried to come back, Bertie. But I got lost. And while I was gone, I met you. And I didn't even have the courage to realize I was home. A wise friend of mine told me "we all have our homes", and now I know it's true. I hope you get this letter, Bertie. I figure I got 75 chances. Cause if you do you'll know that in the end, that's where I was. I found home, Bertie. I found you. I hope you can find your's soon. Get there - as fast as you can. And write me when you do. Love, Joe"."This is just Beck, deadpanning, crooning, and growling against stately arrangements and insinuating melodies. The strings are straight out of Madman Across the Water (a nod to Paul Buckmaster, who also put his stamp on The Stones' "Moonlight Mile"), the pedal steel is pre-alt-country country, and the vocals channel John Martyn and Nick Drake". Source: www.hachettebookgroupusa.com

Heartbreaking endings

"Although rodeos, horses, and cattle percolate through the film, Brokeback does not fit the classic American Western movie storyline. From the films of William S. Hart and Tom Mix down through Gary Cooper in The Virginian and High Noon, John Wayne in Stagecoach, Alan Ladd in Shane, and Clint Eastwood in The Unforgiven, the Western hero wears a cowboy hat, rides a horse, and carries a gun. His ultimate goal is to save the good folks from the bad guys, and he always succeeds. Brokeback, of course, is not like these films at all. Jack Twist and Ennis Del Mar are not engaged in the Westerner’s project of vanquishing evil. In fact, Ang Lee’s film more closely resembles the stories of such star-crossed lovers as Abelard and Heloise, Tristan and Isolde, and Romeo and Juliet. More interestingly, it fits a narrative pattern common in the nineteenth-century operas of Bellini, Donizetti, Verdi, and Wagner.

Ennis learns through a returned postcard that Jack is dead.
Jack’s wife tells him what we’re meant to regard as a false explanation of Jack’s death; for we’re shown a scene lasting only a few seconds of screen time in which a man is brutally attacked by men wielding tire irons. Later Jack’s father denies Ennis’s request to bury Jack’s ashes on Brokeback mountain. All Ennis has left is the jacket and shirt Jack’s mother kindly has given him. And he lives out his live in his small trailer, alone, as if entombed. Thus Brokeback closes, not with a triumphant love duet, but with an enormously sad aloneness. Still, if the film does not end with the standard triumph of love, it ends with love sustained, as Ennis, caressing Jack’s shirt and jacket, tears up and speaks his name aloud: “Jack, I swear …” This is all the Liebestod these star-crossed lovers are allowed". Source: homepage.mac.com"The conversations that Seth and Evan have are so genuine and so quirky, you can't help but respond to what their characters are doing. Everyone has a weird friend like McLovin, though probably not the level of weirdness to which the character goes. Everybody has done something stupid to impress a girl. It's what high school is all about, and "Superbad" is about two guys who have spent their entire high school years doing nothing but 'hanging out', who are finally afford the opportunity to do something that might make them popular, even for a couple of hours. There is an underlying sweetness to the film, especially involving Evan's moving to college and leaving Seth behind. You get the feeling that things are probably going to seriously change after the credits roll in this film. It was just so refreshing to see a film that went non-stop for the laughs, but still managed to provide convincing and likable characters in a storyline that had a little touch of sweetness to it. That's what Judd Apatow does so well with his films, and it evidently rubs off on the films he produces too.

The performances here are rock solid. Jonah Hill and Michael Cera are dead-on as Seth and Evan. I was especially impressed with Cera's performance, who has really developed his own quirky acting style that accounts for a large percentage of the laughs in the film". Source: www.moviesmademe.com

Kirsten watched by Gawker

"Kirsten Dunst is in town! You can always tell because we get a bamillion Stalker sightings in the span of a day or two. The wispy and apparently extremely recognizable Spider-Man actress has recently been spotted traipsing around downtown a couple of times and at Madison Square Garden for last FGt's Coldplay concert. She's one of the celebrities heavily favored by our Gawker Stalkers, who all seem to lurk downtown, eyes peeled for some Gen Y famous face. (It probably helps that Dunst was in hipster fantasia Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.) The stalker emails run the gamut from criticizing Dunst's "pale and sickly," "child prostitute"-esque appearance to saying that she looked super cute in a little black dress. People comment about her, more than other New York celebrities, almost as if they know her (I'm guilty of the same. Nearly bumped into her twice in two days last year and almost said 'hi' the second time out of habit.) Hopefully we're not bothering you, Kirsten, on your little New York jaunts. We just like to peek, it seems. Read the four latest Dunst sightings after the jump.June 23rd @ Coldplay Concert in MSG Kiki Dunst was sitting a few seats away from me.. hunched between 2 tall guys. Her hair looked nice but she's so thin! David Schwimmer and Joey Slotnik were 2 rows down from me rockin' out with 2 gorgeous girls. Totally normal people, even stayed to see if there was an encore! Kiki left as soon as the lights went down. Whatevs.

Kirsten dunst at the beatrice inn on 8th ave and 12th street at12:45am she was dancing at the dj booth and mingling around the place. looked sooo great in a little black dress! when i left she was still there. I saw Kirsten Dunst at Bacaro on Division St on Saturday night about midnight, presumably before she went to beatrice. Poor posture. Seemed to go in and out, maybe to smoke out on the street, or stand with friends who were doing so".
Source: gawker.com

Michelle Williams in "Elle"

"I’m obsessed with water”, Williams says. “The scene in Brokeback Mountain when I open the door and see Heath and Jake kiss? Everyone was outside and I was in this hallway by myself, and I just kept thinking, I want to be like water. I want to slip through fingers, but hold up a ship.”

An open bag of Veggie Booty sits between the seats. This would belong to Matilda Rose Ledger, age two. She is named after the Roald Dahl children’s classic Matilda—a girl born of beastly parents but blessed with magical powers that make her feel as if she’s “flying past the stars on silver wings.”Dressed in black jeans, a button-down shirt, and an argyle sweater, she is boyishly slight. Her features—lips, cheeks, liquid brown eyes—are full. She has only one dimple, there on her right cheek, but what the other cheek lacks, this dimple makes up in depth. Her blond hair is short, in what she considers an awkward growing-out stage, and full of bobby pins. “Bobby pins are my favorite jewelry,” Williams says. “There's nothing sexier than bobby pins.” She gasps suddenly. “That moment in Lolita, when Humbert Humbert is driving into the cow pasture and fingering the bobby pin? Goose bumps!” Even now. Smiling, she pulls up a sleeve revealing her goose-bumped arm.

Her smiles come easily but are complicated, never carefree. “I'm always aware of the whole,” Williams says. “I have that feeling inside, like when something really tickles or delights me—it's not singular. I recognize all the awful things in the world, and in spite of them, I can still laugh.” This hyperawareness has come at a price. “For so long, I felt like a walking open wound everywhere I went,” she says. “There's this Joan Didion quote about being afflicted from an early age with a presentiment of loss. Did I come into the world like that? Or was I kind of gifted that?”Like extrasensory perception, you either have it or you don't. It's a poignant, painful, and appealing quality that cannot be acted. “Your heart just races to her,” says the director Ang Lee, who cast Williams in her Oscar-nominated role in Brokeback Mountain. “I needed that for the part of the dejected wife—the least interesting, dullest part you can imagine. But Michelle in this role—you want to know what happened in her life, clearly a tragic one. You're never told, but you want to find out.”“It was so heartbreaking to watch that not work out,” says the director Todd Haynes, calling later the same day. The couple took roles in I'm Not There, Haynes' experimental Bob Dylan biopic, with Ledger as one of six Dylan incarnates and Williams as the Edie Sedgwicky socialite Coco Rivington. “You can't fault either of them. Really, two of the most extraordinary people,” Haynes continues. “True artists, naked and stripped-down as they approach their craft. Different people with different temperatures and rhythms, exploring themselves.”
Source: www.elle.com

Having fun with her co-stars on the Riviera, Michelle Williams proved life goes on after the death of Heath Ledger.

Promoting her new film "Synecdoche New York", the actress laughed alongside Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener and Samantha Morton.
Source: www.dailymail.co.uk