BuzzSugar

Buzz News Roundup, 9/19

BuzzSugar — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 13:35:47 -0700

Aww, more Vaughn-Favreau goodness: Vince Vaughn, Jon Favreau, Jason Bateman and Faizon Love are set to star together in the comedy Couples Retreat. - ComingSoon
New albums are on the way from Wilco and from Weezer. - Billboard
Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones will play Stella's ex on How I Met Your Mother. - TV Guide
Guess who's the latest name rumored to be playing Dr. Watson to Robert Downey Jr.'s Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie's film: Jude Law. - Variety
Wade Allain Marcus will play "a hipster photographer" on Gossip Girl. - Hollywood Reporter
David Duchovny, Demi Moore and Amber Heard will play a perfect family in the drama The Joneses. - ComingSoon
Get your glasses ready: Chuck is planning a 3-D episode to air the day after the Super Bowl. - Chicago Tribune
Keira Knightley, Eva Mendes and Sam Worthington will star in the romantic drama Last Night. - Variety

Tax Season Movie Night: Money, Money, Money

BuzzSugar — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 11:30:27 -0700

Tax season is upon us and I know how stressful it can be to dig up receipts, fill out the forms and file the ol' taxes. Although my friend Savvy wouldn't be too happy to hear this, I have a bad habit of procrastinating and will find any reason to avoid doing my taxes. This year I have a new strategy: hold a money movie night with the following films and then do my taxes - no more excuses! It's a good plan because there are a lot of good lessons to learn from these movies, you know? OK, that's a lame rationalization, but hey, these movies are fun and might even convince you to stay away from white-collar crimes.

Trading Places
Just thinking about Trading Places makes me laugh, which is the perfect way to kick off a tax season movie night. Eddie Murphy stars alongside fellow funny man Dan Aykroyd in this film that poses the question: Does money make the man?

Louis Winthorpe III (Aykroyd) is a Harvard educated broker who has it all. Billy Ray Valentine (Murphy) is a street hustler angling for a dollar. When these two men switch places in society, all hilarity breaks loose. It's a wacky premise, but Murphy is hysterical and it's a funny peek at the ways in which money changes people.

Two more money movies, so read more.

Wall Street
In high school, my economics teacher taught us all about the stock market and making lots of money. And then he made us watch this movie starring Michael Douglas (who won an Oscar for his performance) and Charlie Sheen to warn us of the dangers of excess. Looking back, this was a smart move as Wall Street is the ultimate cautionary tale. At the center we see the evil, morally depraved Gordon Gekko (Douglas), who embodies the worst of the opulent 1980s. Sheen plays the young and naive newcomer who first believes he can make it big as a mover and shaker on Wall Street, but under the tutelage of the greedy Gekko finds himself tangled in an insider trading scheme and has to fight for his soul. Again, white-collar crime is bad. Thanks, Teach!

Indecent Proposal
Indecent Proposal, starring Demi Moore, Woody Harrelson and Robert Redford, is a provocative twist on an age-old question: How far are you willing to go for money? Moore and Harrelson are a happy couple who find themselves in a serious financial crisis and head to Vegas (naturally!). There, a rich, handsome stranger (Redford) offers them $1 million for a night of you-know-what with Moore. What follows is scandalous, shocking and painful. In the end though, it's a good lesson in how just a little bit of moral compromise in the name of greed can eat you alive.

Source and Source

Flawless: Dressed for Success but Ultimately Forgettable

BuzzSugar — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 09:30:46 -0700

Directed by Il Postino's Michael Radford, Flawless has all the elements of a slick, old-timey heist movie, including lots of neato early-1960s costumes. However, though I was enamored with shots of Demi Moore's gorgeous charcoal-colored suits against a backdrop of crisp menswear, the film totally drops the ball in terms of developing tension around this old-fashioned diamond heist.

Flawless opens in a modern-day cafe where a young female journalist is interviewing an elderly woman (Demi Moore in old-person make-up) named Laura Quinn. Quinn describes a 1960s London where the young Quinn (Moore) is the lone businesswoman at the fictional London Diamond Co. As you'd expect, an educated, unmarried, ambitious woman at this time is not exactly a welcome addition to the team, and we quickly understand that this character is an outsider. We're then introduced to someone else on the outside looking in: Mr. Hobbs (Michael Caine), the company janitor who sees Quinn as a potential accomplice to stealing the company's diamonds.

To read where I think this good-looking film falls short, read more

For Quinn, being the lone female in this boys' club means being passed over for promotions and getting hit on by married men on a constant basis, and to make matters worse, she soon finds out that she's probably going to get fired. So, she's none too pleased with the London Diamond Co. Hobbes, too, has his motives for taking the company down, though they're not entirely clear which lends the plot a little mystery. Therefore, the "how" they take the diamonds isn't very exciting and the film is far more concerned with the "why."

The problem is, nothing is unraveled in a way that would lend adequate suspense to the plot. Also, there's a social conscience to the film (focusing on both global issues and women in the workplace), but it's so awkwardly woven into the story, it's hard to feel anything about these issues. For example, protest signs show up early on, indicating that the London Diamond Co. is a shady company that may deal in the blood diamond trade, but this is never really explored.

The bright spots in the film for me were charming moments from the talented Caine, and the icy-cool feel of the film. Everything from the click-clacks of Quinn's heels on the marble floor of the corporation to observing the tidy way people smoked back then is captivating to watch. In the end, though, all the predictable plot lines wrap themselves up neatly and we're asked to endure an ending so blunt in its message, it could be mistaken for a UNICEF commercial. The clumsy handling of social issues combined with a complete lack of interest around the heist itself makes the whole experience forgettable.

In fact, knowing what the filmmakers were attempting to pull off here made me realize that Spike Lee already did so, and brilliantly in Inside Man. If you're looking for a heist film with a heart, you should check out that movie instead.

Photos courtesy of Magnolia Pictures

Movie Preview: Demi Moore and Michael Caine in Flawless

BuzzSugar — Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:31:09 -0800

Take a few notes from Mad Men and some hints from Ocean's Eleven, add Demi Moore and Michael Caine as the lead duo and you've got Flawless, a diamond heist film with an unlikely pair of criminals.

Set in 1960 London, the story follows the longtime janitor at the London Diamond Corporation (Caine) who, despite nearing retirement, decides to steal some diamonds from his employer. The person he goes to for help? A matronly Demi Moore, playing an American executive at the company who, as one of the few females, has repeatedly been passed up for promotions in favor of younger male employees. Though it's risky, she agrees to help the janitor with his heist.

Supposedly, it's a drama but the trailer makes it seem like a quirky heist comedy. I'm curious about this one, and I look forward to catching it in theaters when it opens March 28. You can check out the trailer and tell me what you think if you read more.

Source

Movie Preview: Mr. Brooks

BuzzSugar — Tue, 22 May 2007 08:05:42 -0700

I was semi-interested in this new thriller Mr. Brooks until I watched the preview and realized that Dane Cook's part looks fairly substantial, and my wariness for the film intensified. Kevin Costner plays Mr. Early Brooks, a man sometimes controlled by his murderous alter-ego Marshall (William Hurt). Demi Moore iss Detective Tracy Atwood who becomes the target of the serial killer she's trying to track down. Cook plays a nasty guy who catches Mr. Brooks in one of his bloody acts and then blackmails him.

Opening June 1st, the same weekend as Ocean's Thirteen kind of makes it seem like they don't want us to see it. You can check out the trailer and tell me what you think if you read more

Source

What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday

BuzzSugar — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 15:25:00 -0700

All of the new DVD releases hit stores (and Netflix) on Tuesdays. So each week in What to Netflix: New DVD Tuesday, I sort through the best of the batch and tell you what to add to your queue. This week, it's pretty slim pickin' - though I should mention that Jonestown: The Life & Death of Peoples Temple also comes out today and is a fascinating film for all you documentary fans.

Bobby
This ambitious narrative of the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy follows 22 different characters at the primary election night party. Plenty of A-list celebrities round out an impressive cast (Anthony Hopkins, Martin Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Demi Moore, among many, many others), though none gets significant enough screen time to take over as a protagonist. What makes the film interesting is the effective use of real footage of Robert F. Kennedy interspersed with the fictional scenes, ultimately providing a heartbreaking sense of hope lost.

Strangely, filmmaker Emilio Estevez doesn't offer a commentary in the DVD extras, but the director does take part in the "making of" documentary. The extra feature that looks most interesting, however, is the panel discussion with people who were actually at the Ambassador Hotel that fateful night. For a more in-depth look at the film, check out my review of Bobby.

Link Time! Is Steven Tyler Leaving Aerosmith?

BuzzSugar — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 13:30:10 -0800

Joe Perry says that Steven Tyler may have quit Aerosmith - Vulture
Leighton Meester's music video with Robin Thicke involves a lot of writhing - E! Online
The team behind the movie Se7en is reuniting for a new film - Cinematical
Eminem, aka Slim Shady, takes on a horror 3D film appropriately titled Shady Talez. - MTV Movies Blog
Harriet the Spy is getting made into a TV movie for Disney, but this time, she blogs - TV.com
Here's what (500) Days of Summer would've looked like without a script - Movieline
Demi Moore promotes two new movies in December's W magazine - PopSugar
Ashlee Simpson may be coming to Broadway as Roxie in Chicago - Zap2it
The 20 worst cover songs ever - EW