News

Think your friends are bad at keeping their lips sealed? Just imagine how much more of a struggle it would be if they were constantly bombarded with questions on camera.

Even these media-seasoned celebs have accidentally spilled the beans about their buddies’ would-be secrets, proving that no one is immune to the occasional goof.

1. Oprah Winfrey announced Mindy Kaling’s pregnancy.

Kaling‘s A Wrinkle in Time costar confirmed that she’s expecting her first child while talking to People in July. “My mouth dropped,” Winfrey recalled about how she first heard the news while standing in a press line at Disney’s D23 expo.

Russian editing whizzes Sergei Eisenstein, Vsevolod Pudovkin, and Lev Kuleshov proved it in the earliest days of silent film: Truth rests in the eye of the beholder. In Fred Schepisi’s 1988 true drama, “A Cry in the Dark,” Meryl Streep starred as the woman who famously cried “a dingo took my baby!” to resounding disbelief in Australia. Police and others looked at her inexpressive face, surrounded by a cowl of dark hair, and decided she was guilty of murdering her child.

Similarly, the court of public opinion — as well as the courts of Italy — declared that 20-year-old party girl Amanda Knox, studying abroad in Perugia, murdered her roommate, Meredith Kercher. It took eight years, but in 2015 the Italian Supreme Court finally declared her innocent, and that she had no motive.

Who supplied her motives? According to Brian McGinn and Rod Blackhurst’s documentary “Amanda Knox” (Netflix, September 30), which took five...

Though Justin Timberlake has made a splash on film with scene-stealing performances in David Fincher’s “The Social Network” and the Coen Brother’s “Inside Llewyn Davis,” the man is still primarily a pop star. His last worldwide tour in support of his two-part album “The 20/20 Experience” grossed over $230 million and lasted over a year. Director Jonathan Demme captured Timberlake’s final two shows on the tour at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas and turned them into the concert film “Justin Timberlake + The Tennessee Kids.” Watch a trailer for the film below.

Read More: Justin Timberlake and Anna Kendrick Sing Cyndi Lauper’s ‘True Colors’ at Cannes Film Festival

Demme is no stranger to capturing live performance or working with musical artists. One of Demme’s most universally acclaimed films is “Stop Making Sense,” the 1984 Talking Heads concert film that has remained in the public imagination for decades. Demme...

This week Jennifer Lopez stars in "The Boy Next Door," a suburban psychosexual thriller where Lopez plays a recently separated teacher who has an affair with the (legally of-age) boy next door (Ryan Guzman), only to find her on the receiving end of brutal harassment and some profane graffiti (among other things). This is a movie that is so bad that it eclipse its own awfulness and becomes kind of good again. If I had seen it on opening night, in a packed theater full of screaming, susceptible fans, then I probably would have had the time of my life with it. Instead, I was in a stuffy midtown screening room and while there were certainly jolts of approval from the everyday folks the studio sneaked in, it was hard not to snicker in derision every chance we could.

If you're not going to see "Boy Next Door," or maybe...

News

Vulture analyses the state of the singing competition series, which seems to have run out of steam, especially after the lackluster debut of Rising Star. Maybe its time to try to revive a show like Making the Band or Popstars.

The View is rebooting next year. Yesterday, Sherri Shpherd and Jenny McCarthy announced that they were leaving the talk show. Additionally, TMZ reports that longtime producer Bill Gedde is leaving too. That leaves only Whoopi Goldberg staying. TMZ also says that the show is interested in bringing back Rosie O’Donnell or hiring Ross Mathews.

Ross Mathews would get my attention

TVLine reports that The Goldbergs is planning a tribute episode to 80s teen movie legend John Hughes.

Guillermo del Toro says there’s a five season plan for his upcoming vampire drama The Strain which will follow the story from the Strain book trilogy but not too strictly.



The Wonders

At Cannes this year, I cried at the end of The Wonders by Alice (A-lee-che, she's Italian) Rohrwacher. Crying at The Wonders is one thing I have in common with Nicolas Widing Refn.

I didn't expect to cry. At first, the film reminded me of two nauseating clichés. One is the coming-of-age summer, when some unexpected boy arrives on the scene and changes everything. The other, in this film about an eccentric family of beekeepers in Tuscany, is that sort of softcore porn of the European idyllic countryside (with soft backlighting) that finds easy audiences in the United States. Summer Hours is one recent example.

Yet about halfway through, The Wonders defied my expectations through filmmaking choices with texture, costume, and music. I'd guess that a song in the credits is what pushed Refn to tears. It's a John Hughes-type cue used much more subtly than Refn's own music choices.

2013 was a year stuffed with high-profile film adaptations of young adult bestsellers — most of which ended up crashing and burning at the box office. (Alas, Beautiful Creatures, Mortal Instruments, Percy Jackson, and Ender’s Game — no Harry Potter-style cultural dominance for you.) But while each of those big-budget spectacles flailed, a humbler Ya-based movie quietly emerged as the year’s best teen flick: The Spectacular Now, out on DVD today.

Spectacular is a sweet but dark love story about gregarious alcoholic Sutter (Miles Teller) and his relationship with his smart, slightly nerdy classmate Aimee (Shailene Woodley). What you may not realize before seeing the film,...

Review Michael Noble 26 Nov 2013 - 11:37

Boardwalk Empire finishes its fourth season confident in its imperial phase. Here's Michael's review...

This review contains spoilers

4.12 Farewell Daddy Blues

Of the ninety-four songs recorded by Ma Rainey, around a tenth mention ‘mama’, ‘papa’ or ‘daddy’ in the title. It makes her a rather handy contemporary reference for a season in which parental relationships have been integral and one in which their eventual severing has been inevitable. Farewell Daddy Blues, which takes its name from a 1924 Rainey recording, brings such concerns to their climax and completes the painful dissections where necessary.

Capone finally got Torrio’s blessing to take over the business. It took a hail of bullets to convince poor Johnny that the new world that Prohibition had created was a little too rich for an old man and more suited to his young protégé’s singular talents. The handover has come...

Tickets are selling fast for the 46th Annual Awgie Awards, to be held in Melbourne on October 4.

To be hosted by writer, comedian and singer Sammy J, the ceremony will honour the achievements made by Australian writers for performance. The Awgie Awards are the only Australian awards judged solely by writers on the basis of the script . the writer's intention . rather than the finished production.

"The Awgies are the highlight of the year for us and a unique chance to celebrate the oft-unsung but stellar work created by Australian writers of the script," says Awg.s President and Academy Award nominee Jan Sardi..

.It.s a night that really just celebrates the importance of story and storytelling. And that.s what sets us apart from other animals in the end, the ability to tell stories..

Sardi says the slate of nominated work is once again a strong one.

.It.s...

To say this year has been unkind to young adult adaptations would be an understatement. In February, "Beautiful Creatures" opened with just $7.5 million in ticket sales, this despite being based on the popular Ya novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. In March, "The Host," an adaptation of "Twilight" author Stephenie Meyer's Ya novel, underwhelmed with an opening of $10 million. Last weekend, it was "Mortal Instruments: City of Bones" that stumbled: the adaptation of Cassandra Claire's popular Ya series grossed only $14 million in its first five days of release. Even the first trailer for the adaptation of Veronica Roth's "Divergent," the series many have pegged as the heir apparent to "The Hunger Games," was met with a few shrugs after it debuted during the MTV Video Music Awards pre-show on Sunday.

This is the world that Mark Waters' adaptation of Richelle Mead's "Vampire Academy" is coming into next year.

Chicago – The small but mighty Verne Troyer is a lucky and humble star. He grew in Michigan, and maintains his Midwestern roots in his approach to show business. Troyer makes an appearance at the Hollywood Palms (Naperville, Ill.) and the Hollywood Blvd. Cinema (Woodridge) to introduce “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” and “Goldmember.”

Troyer has Amish roots, and led a conventional and productive life in Michigan. He was working in customer service for a phone company after a move to Texas, when he got connected to a placement service for the smaller people in entertainment. That led to his first gig, as a stand-in/stunt person for the John Hughes film, “Baby’s Day Out” (1994). Five years later, after taking roles in familiar 1990s films – including “Men in Black” and “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” – he broke out as “Mini-Me” and portrayed him in the second and...

The New England Patriots won last night, setting up a battle with the New York Giants, which in my world means that I get off the Atlantis cruise with Giants fan Travis Wall on Super Bowl Sunday in Patriots fan Dom Palange's home town. I wonder if I'm invited over for the game?

Best Week Ever has a post about the cutest players from this year's Puppy Bowl, which I should be home just in time to watch. Personally, I think that Abilene, the Australian Shepherd Mix should have been #1.

The Oklahoma legislature has taken up a bill to outlaw cannibalism in the state's food supply. In other news, tourism to Oklahoma just nosedived.

This is a pretty good article about why we're all so obsessed with Downton Abbey, though British readers will either take #2 as an insult or a badge of honor. Let me know which, but please note...

They’ve showcased the works of Quentin Tarantino, John Hughes, Baz Luhrmann and now it’s the Coen Brothers’ turn to hit the stage for Show At Barre’s For the Record series. Previews kicked off on July 8th and the show officially opens on Thursday, July 21st at 9pm, set to run every Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 9pm ending on September 24th. For the Record: Coen Brothers infuses standard Broadway-style fair with Hollywood productions, in this case films specific to the Coen Brothers. The show features highlights from the writing-directing duo’s resume including particular scenes and soundtrack selections from films like O Brother, Where Art Thou? , Fargo and The Big...

What is Page 2? Page 2 is a compilation of stories and news tidbits, which for whatever reason, didn’t make the front page of /Film. After the jump we’ve included 50 different items, fun images, videos, casting tidbits, articles of interest and more. It’s like a mystery grab bag of movie web related goodness. If you have any interesting items that we might've missed that you think should go in /Film's Page 2 - email us [1]! Header image: A Godfather animated gif tribute by If We Don't, Remember Me [2]. The t-shirt of the day on TeeFury [3] is Jimiyo's reimagined Gryffindor house crest from Harry Potter. The t-shirt will be available today only, and for only $10 plus shipping. Mini-Geek Deal: Best Buy has a bunch of Blu-rays on sale: Office Space, Napoleon Dynamite, Dodgeball: True Underdog Story, or Super Troopers $7 each [4] with Printable Coupon (in-store only). Google celebrated comic book legend Will Eisner...

Why did the 1997 movie take on The Avengers go so wrong? What’s it like to direct Sharon Stone? And how do you recover when your movie is slammed by the critics?

In part one of our interview with Jeremiah Chechik, he talked about working with John Hughes, being noticed by Kubrick and Spielberg, and making the wonderful Benny & Joon.

Here, he takes us through working with movie stars, on both Diabolique, and on Warner Bros' big-screen take on The Avengers. Incidentally, we should point out that this interview was conducted before the recent stories about Kevin Smith and Bruce Willis on the set of Cop Out surfaced.

Without further ado...

I interviewed Kevin Smith last year, and talked about working with Bruce Wills on Cop Out. The interesting thing talking to him was it was very clear that the mechanics of making the movie had changed as soon as...

2010 was an unremarkable year in Film; brilliance was isolated. Prominently a year of superb acting: Leonardo DiCaprio gleamed in both Shutter Island and Inception; The Social Network had the most outstanding cast: Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield, and Rooney Mara; Ryan Reynolds’ performance piece in Buried; Emma Stone’s iconic teen role in Easy A; Chloe Grace Moretz’s beautiful evil in Let Me In and Hailee Steinfeld robust close-up in True Grit. Also, good direction excelled voluminously in films by Christopher Nolan, David Fincher, Edgar Wright and the Coen Brother’s.

Sadly, there were only sporadic injections of greatness in film; at this moment in cinema there should be a bastion of inspiration – with the complexity of the world, ideas and contemporary special effects. There is less of a harmony of all the great elements in films these days. Cinema is about escape; it’s a foolish notion that just...

History hit Hollywood last night as the first woman in the 82-year-history of the Academy Awards took home the best director honors. For those counting at home, that is 81 guys, 1 gals. Well. you’ve got to start somewhere.

The night’s big winner was the indie war drama The Hurt Locker, besting box office record-breaker Avatar on the way to picking up six trophies. While the results were long overdue (and in more ways than one, the show over a half hour long), there were still plenty of water-cooler (or plain old Wtf) moments to make it memorable. I mean, Sandra Bullock thanked “My lover, Meryl Streep” onstage. So, you know, it couldn’t have been all bad. A look at some of the Oscar’s highlights and lowlights.

Brother site AfterElton.com’s Gay Man of the Decade Neil Patrick Harris opened the show with a surprise song-and-dance number...

Edward Cullen, Bill Compton … and Stefan Salvatore? There's a new vampire in Tinseltown and he's got the looks and chops - literally! - to give Robert Pattinson a run for his money. Starting this fall, the 27-year-old hottie appears as gentle bloodsucker Stefan in the new CW series Vampire Diaries based on the bestselling teen lit novels by L.J. Smith. "I did a lot of research," Wesley told People of preparing for the coveted role. "I was Googling vampires." Here are five things any fang fanatic should know about the latest vamp to rule the night:Don't Call Him an...

DVD Playhouse—May 2009

Paramount Centennial Collection Paramount Studios releases two more classic titles from its library on special edition DVD: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is John Ford’s last masterpiece (although he would go on to direct two more very good films) from 1962: about an Eastern lawyer (James Stewart) who travels west only to find primal brutality in the form of sadistic bandit Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin, great as always) and pragmatic brutality in local rancher Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), each two sides of a coin that represent a way of life slowly dying out as Stewart’s modern brand of civilization tames the West. A perfect film, period. Howard Hawks’ El Dorado is essentially a remake of his earlier classic Rio Bravo, with John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and a young James Caan as lawmen joining forces against corrupt cattle barons. Great fun. Two disc sets.