WEIRDLAND

Friday, July 04, 2008

HAPPY 4TH JULY!

I wish you have a happy 4th of July to my American readers!

Michael Cera (The other way)

Training for The Prince Of Persia

Jake learning to sword fight on a horse in England, on 3rd July.

Source: http://www.dailymotion.com/mrpaparazzi
"Jake Gyllenhaal and bond girl Gemma Arterton doing horse riding training in preperation for the upcoming film Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. They are seen riding around in a training pen with Jake sporting a beard and sunglasses".
Source: www.mrpaparazzi.com

Thursday, July 03, 2008

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

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

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".

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

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: