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Blake and Robin Have the Stars of Nine Supporting Pippa Lee

PopSugar — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 07:45:00 -0800

The leading ladies of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee hit the red carpet in NYC on Saturday evening. Blake Lively didn't address rumors she's going into business with Victoria Beckham as she smiled for the cameras, while her boyfriend Penn Badgley mingled with fellow Gossip Girl actor Chace Crawford behind the scenes. Robin Wright Penn, meanwhile, showed off her new dark hairdo as she posed alongside Julianne Moore and Keanu Reeves. The film's writer and director, Rebecca Miller, brought along her husband Daniel Day-Lewis. He, in turn, was accompanied by a few of his costars in Nine, like Penelope Cruz and Marion Cotillard. Both films hit the box office in the coming weeks, but it looks like the two casts have nothing but support for each other.

To see more from the bash, just read more.

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Images include: Andrew McCarthy, Bart Freundlich, Billy Crudup, Blake Lively, Chace Crawford, Daniel Day-Lewis, Julianne Moore, Keanu Reeves, Marion Cotillard, Penelope Cruz, Penn Badgley, Robin Wright Penn, Shannon Elizabeth, Sophia Bush, Zoe Kazan

What Book-to-Movie Changes Have Bugged You?

BuzzSugar — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 11:30:07 -0700

In adapting a book for the big screen, adjustments are obviously necessary and often understandable - except when they're quite frustrating. Earlier this year the news came out that the My Sister's Keeper filmmakers were changing the end of the story for the film version, causing a bit of apprehension for fans of the Jodi Picoult novel. In my opinion, the change made sense for the film, but I also understand the loyalty people feel toward the source material.

Today there's more casting news for the film adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat Pray Love (Billy Crudup will play Gilbert's husband) and the description of this character doesn't quite mesh with my memory of the book. Here's more:

Crudup will play Steven, who is married to Gilbert ([Julia] Roberts). His hopes to have children are dashed when her quest to get pregnant leaves her feeling she is not living the life she wants. She embarks on a journey of self-discovery around the world.

Granted, it's been a while since I read Eat Pray Love, but that's not how I remember her husband. I'd wondered if they'd include much of Gilbert's husband at all in the film, and I certainly didn't think he'd be painted as such a heartbroken victim. From reading the book, I didn't get the sense that he was much of a victim at all and it seems more than a little unfair to say that Gilbert "dashed his hopes" by wanting to do something for herself. Perhaps it's just an issue of wording within the news article, but it annoys me nonetheless.

Are there changes in film adaptations that have irritated you?

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Michael Phelps Cleans Up at the Star-Studded ESPY Awards

PopSugar — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:00:01 -0700

Many celebs hit the red carpet last night at the ESPY awards in LA to honor the stars of the sports industry. Samuel L. Jackson was the evening's host, and he kept the audience laughing with his jokes about Twitter. Zachary Quinto took the stage looking dapper in his suit, while Miranda Kerr smiled for photos before the scary robbery at Orlando Bloom's house. Demi Moore was also on hand to present Michael Phelps with one of his five awards. It might not have been as snazzy as last year's Justin Timberlake's ESPY hosting gig, but the athletes and stars looked fantastic for the sports-filled night.

Michael wasn't the only one getting trophies - Hollywood's beloved Lakers won Best Team. Other presenters included Rashida Jones and Jeremy Piven, while funny men Andy Samberg and Seth Meyers watched alongside Billy Crudup. The festivities are set to air Sunday evening on ESPN.

To see lots more photos including Kendra Wilkinson, Rob Lowe, Jeremy Piven and others just read more.

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Images include: Andy Samberg, Jaime Pressly, Kendra Wilkenson, Kobe Bryant, Michael Phelps, Rashida Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Seth Meyers, Wyclef Jean, Shawn Johnson, Miranda Kerr, Billy Crudup, Condoleezza Rice, Zachary Levi, Demi Moore, Zachary Quinto, Jeremy Piven, Marisa Miller, Olivia Wilde, Rob Lowe, Stevie Wonder, Will.i.am

Johnny Depp in Public Enemies - See It or Skip It?

PopSugarUK — Thu, 07 May 2009 04:59:23 -0700

Here's a movie I am definitely looking forward to - Johnny Depp teams up with Christian Bale for Public Enemies, released in the UK on July 3. Delicious Johnny plays legendary 1930s bank robber John Dillenger, Christian costars as the FBI's top agent Melvin Purvis, and Marion Cotillard, Channing Tatum and Billy Crudup also feature in the star studded film from director Michael Mann. Check out the trailer and tell me - will you see it, or will you skip it?

Watchmen: Fun For Fans

BuzzSugar — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 09:30:33 -0800

It's obviously difficult to adapt a beloved written (and, in this case, drawn) work for the big screen - and it’s downright impossible to make an adaptation that satisfies every viewer (or certainly every megafan). I truly enjoyed reading the comic book series Watchmen by Dave Gibbons and Alan Moore, and having seen the film adaptation, I don't dislike it. It's probably the best we could have asked for as far as adaptations go. And I know it's useless now to say that the work should never have been brought to film in the first place (though I do feel that way), so now that it has been made into a movie, is it any good? From a fan's perspective I say, sure, it's fine. But I don't have any other perspective to go by.

I have no idea how this movie comes across to someone who has never read the comic book series. I can't even pretend to be unbiased about this - as a fan, just seeing these characters come to life is incredibly exciting. But as a standalone movie, I can admit that it's probably not great. Essentially, it's made for the fanboys (and fangirls) and other viewers may not understand or like it. It's campy, sometimes resembling a silly soap opera, and truthfully I am hard-pressed to remember any distinct images or scenes from the movie, just a few days after seeing it. It's certainly temporary entertainment, and for some it may be frustrating to watch. For more about the movie and my take, read more.

The opening credits (which I got to see at Wondercon, awesomely) are perhaps my favorite part of the whole thing as we hear Bob Dylan's "The Times, They Are A-Changing" and go through a series of slow-motion images of what's been happening politically over the Cold War years, along with images depicting the rise and fall of masked vigilantes in the US. Originally revered as society's helpers, by the 1980s masked crime-fighters have become hated, and people want their good ol' police officers back protecting them. One "mask" is the dark outlaw Rorschach, who still wears a mask of ever-shifting ink blots over his face. Now in 1985 New York City, Rorschach notices that someone has been murdering former masked avengers one by one and he becomes determined to get to the bottom of it. Meanwhile, tensions between the US and the Soviet Union are reaching a boil and nuclear war seems imminent. The movie strings together several different stories of the various former crime-fighters while simultaneously increasing the threat of nuclear destruction within the US-Soviet conflict.

Director Zack Snyder is very faithful to the written work (though he makes some decisions to make certain scenes bigger or smaller, like a particular sex scene that seems to go on for approximately forever). So any real issues one has with the story of Watchmen or with the characters are probably issues with the source material itself and not so much with Snyder's adaptation. That said, even having read the series, the movie is way more violent than I thought it would be. At times it's that cartoonish violence that's easy to take, but some of the gore is startling. In movie form it's just gruesome.

Despite this faithfulness to the material, though, there's a weightiness and a complexity to the written work that doesn't quite come through, leaving many of the scenes to fall flat and empty. The written work is expansive and complicated and multilayered - to pare it all down to a storyline people can understand (even in the lengthy running time of approximately 162 minutes) is an insanely massive task to take on. And in attempting to do so, some parts of the book simply don’t translate well. Dr. Manhattan (a physicist who has an accident in his lab, resulting in his becoming an all-powerful blue, glowy giant being), for example, comes across as just silly and in fact, I found myself at times bored or annoyed with him. His scenes with Laurie are even more tiresome.

Perhaps unsurprisingly (but no less satisfyingly), the best moments come from Rorschach. Aside from being a fan favorite in general, Jackie Earle Haley does a marvelous job making us care about Rorschach and see him as a disturbed man with a strong sense of right and wrong. He's pitiable and a little bit frightening, too. It's easy to root for Rorschach; it's easy for the audience to want to be on his side. We know that he's a bit messed up but somehow all the more likable because of it. And the dark electricity Haley brings to the screen in each of his scenes sets the character of Rorschach apart from the rest.

And maybe I'm easily amused, but the ever-shifting mask he wears is unendingly cool to watch.

See, that's the thing. As a fan, I forgive so much. I don't know how to recommend this movie to the uninitiated - I have no idea what it looks like, or if it's worth the nearly three hours in a movie theater. But as a fan I was going to go anyway, and short of total disaster, I was probably always going to think what I think: that it's cool-looking and super satisfying to see these characters come to life.

Photos courtesy of Warner Bros.

BuzzSugar at WonderCon: Watchmen Takes the Stage!

BuzzSugar — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 07:30:07 -0800

Saturday at WonderCon started with a bang: Watchmen director Zack Snyder appeared before an extremely packed house along with his cast to reveal about 20 minutes of footage from the movie, including the opening credits.

The conversation was lively and the footage very exciting. Of course, I can't give my final opinion till I've seen the movie start to finish, but based on what I saw this weekend, it's hard for me to imagine this film stumbling too hard. I'm a huge fan of the graphic novel, so I may be a wee bit biased - though it's hard to tell if that would make me easier or harder on the film. I guess I'll know soon, but to see my thoughts on the panel and more details about the clips, read more.

The ballroom crowd went wild when, in addition to director Zack Snyder, most of the major cast members showed up on stage. They included Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Billy Crudup, Malin Akerman, Jackie Earle Haley, and Patrick Wilson.

After some chatting about the movie, Snyder announced he was showing us the first 20 minutes or so of the movie. The opening credits of Watchmen are astonishing and manage to cram in the history and back story of the movie's alternate reality, all set to Bob Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin."
We also got to see a scene of Rorschach (Haley) in prison that practically had the crowd on its feet by the end. I'll just say this: it's violent, it's kick-ass, and I think it's a taste at how satisfying seeing this graphic novel on the big screen could be.
A couple of funny moments: Morgan said that in approaching his role as The Comedian, he had to somehow make the character seem human in the midst of "killing, raping and pillaging throughout the world." Crudup said in order to make Dr. Manhattan seem distracted, he just thought of "walking on the surface of the sun and things like that."

If there's a sequel, it probably won't involve Snyder, who called such rumors "crazy talk" and added, "To me it seems impossible to even talk about. That's like a sequel to Moby Dick."
For the record, Snyder couldn't be cuter in person.
If the film does well it will almost certainly get a director's cut re-release this July. Currently, the movie is 2 hours and 43 minutes long, and the director's cut will be 3 hours and 10 minutes.
When talking about all the cuts Snyder had to make for the theatrical release, he mentioned the studio requesting less of two things: violence and Dr. Manhattan's blue, er, private areas.
Snyder also said that the companion story to the comic, Black Freighter, has been created as an animation and will be released on DVD a week after the movie hits theaters.
Dave Gibbons, the novel's illustrator, had nothing but kind words for the movie, saying "It's completely surreal" and "This is like the movie I saw in my head, and these are like the people I saw in my dreams."
Fun fact: Little Rorschach, whom we see in the opening credits, is played by Snyder's own son.

Jonathan, John And Rob Watch the Watchmen!

PopSugarUK — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 04:26:52 -0800

Last night, stars flocked to Leicester Square for the premiere of one of the most anticipated movies this year - Watchmen - an adaptation of the immensely popular graphic novel. The cast of the movie, including Malin Ackerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino and Jeffrey Dean Morgan showed up in their finest on the yellow, smiley-faced carpet last night, and greeted famous fans of the book including Jonathan Ross, John Thomson, gorgeous Rob Kazinsky and also Rhydian Roberts!

If you fancy checking out the book before the movie is released, you can catch up with the discussion in Buzz's book club! The film opens March 6, after a lawsuit between Fox and Warner Bros. prolonged the wait for the movie.

To see more pictures of the stars and guests at the London premiere, just read more.

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New Watchmen Trailer Provides More Info

BuzzSugar — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:30:11 -0800

OK, I'll admit it: When I first saw the teaser trailer for Watchmen, I didn't really get it. I liked the look of it and I think the use of that Smashing Pumpkins song "The Beginning Is the End Is the Beginning" is inspired. But I didn't understand what was going on, unfamiliar as I was with the source material. Well, I decided to become familiar with the source material and now that I have, I'm a wee bit obsessed. To find out why and to see a new trailer, read more.

Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons's comic book series Watchmen has received overwhelming critical praise ever since publication in 1986 and 1987. In 2005 it was included on Time's list of "the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present," and Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof has called it ''the greatest piece of popular fiction ever produced." Unlike other superhero franchises (Superman, Spider-Man, Batman, etc.), Watchmen was deemed "unfilmmable," with director Terry Gilliam stating that "by reducing it to a two or two-and-a-half hour film, it seemed to me to take away the essence of what Watchmen is about.”

Well, in this superhero-happy era of filmmaking, Watchmen was going to be made, and admirably enough (at least in my opinion) 300 director Zack Snyder took on the project mostly because he loves the work and he worried that the wrong director wouldn't do it justice.

Now I'm almost done reading Watchmen and while I wasn't sure I'd like it, I have to say, I'm totally mesmerized. I think I see what all the fuss is about. And yesterday I (somewhat) patiently waited until 5:00 p.m. my time to catch the latest trailer for the film, which opens March 6, 2009. I've rarely been this intrigued by something I won't see for another four months. The new trailer provides more information on the story, so check it out below and tell me what you think.

Images courtesy of Warner Bros.

D&G Celebrates New Smell With MM, Kate and Mischa

Molly — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 12:30:00 -0800

Matthew McConaughey cleaned up real nice (just like a good spokesmodel should) for the launch of Dolce & Gabbana's new fragrance at the Gramercy Park hotel in NYC last night. It certainly didn't hurt that he had his gorgeous girlfriend Camila Alves on his arm. Also out to celebrate the scent were starlets like Anne Hathaway and a stylish Mischa Barton (where has she been?). Kate Hudson was also in the house to support her Fool's Gold costar's new modeling deal, but rather than bring out another new coat for the event she repeated the white fur number to go with her gray ankle booties. All it takes is a shower, a shave, and a fancy suit to remind me how hot MM can be (sigh, A Time To Kill), but has his grungy beach running/general dirtiness ruined him forever for you?

To see more from the party including Eva Mendes, Petra Nemcova, Molly Sims, Billy Crudup, Jason Lewis, Stacey Keibler and others just read more

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Images include Petra Nemcova, Matthew McConaughey, Camila Alves, Molly Sims, Eva Mendes, Kate Hudson, Billy Crudup, Rosario Dawson, Mischa Barton, Karolina Kurkova, Rain Phoenix, Jason Lewis, Stacey Keibler, Alessandra Ambrosio, Anne Hathaway, Raffaello Follieri, Alek Wek, Brian Grazer, Stefano Gabbana, Domenico Dolce, Vanessa Carlton.

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Dedication: Too Weird for Its Own Good

BuzzSugar — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 06:00:00 -0700

Dedication, the directorial debut from Justin Theroux, is a weird little movie. And while that's not necessarily a bad thing, Dedication gets a little too lost in its own weirdness, ultimately overwhelming what could be a sweet, unlikely love story.

At the heart of Dedication is Henry Roth (Billy Crudup), a basket case of a children's book writer who occasionally has to put heavy objects (encyclopedias or other large books, preferably) on top of himself to feel safe. The one person in the world who can tolerate his antics is his illustration partner, Rudy Holt (Tom Wilkinson), whose particular brand of tough love seems to calm Henry down. The two are working on a tough deadline for a children's book based on their character of Marty the Beaver (dreamed up, amusingly enough, in a porno theater) when Rudy dies suddenly of a brain tumor. That leaves Henry without an illustrator, not to mention without an anchor to the regular, non-neurotic world.

Enter Lucy (Mandy Moore), an illustrator plucked by editor Arthur Planck (Bob Balaban) to work with Henry. Henry spends most of his time trying to figure out just how insulting and nasty he can be to Lucy before she gives up and leaves him alone; considering she's been offered $200,000 if she gets Henry to finish the book (unbeknownst to him, of course), it will take a lot more than insults to get her to leave. It's a perfectly solid plot, but Theroux doesn't control the movie's tone enough to execute it well. To see what I mean, read more

The first half of the movie feels trippy and surreal, something straight out of a David Lynch film (an effect I doubt is coincidental - but more on that later). Henry, angry over Rudy's death, continues speaking to his dead partner in a series of dream sequences, shot with a choppy, deliberate camera effect. Crudup does a fine job of conveying Henry's various psychoses, and though much of his character is never really explained - why the books? why the OCD tendencies to rearrange the condiments at every restaurant? - he's interesting enough. One of Theroux's greatest strengths as a director is his use of music, and the soundtrack adds a lot to the story, with the disjointed sounds of Deerhoof giving an additional window into Henry's psyche and the more mellow Cat Power representing Lucy's calming presence. But in general, the effects are a little too strange to be useful; after the first couple of jolts into Henry's alternate reality where Rudy is still alive, the device felt tired.

But I still prefer the vaguely experimental tone of the movie's first half to the more standard love story it becomes in the end, because in all the trippiness, Theroux forgets to give us much reason to care about Henry or Lucy. Mandy Moore gives Lucy a good underlying toughness, but her character - who is also trying to decide whether to get back with her professor/thesis adviser (Martin Freeman) - isn't written deeply enough to understand why she'd put up with either of these guys. When the weirdness of the movie's first half starts to fall away, the story just feels empty.

Which brings me back to David Lynch. Theroux, who worked with Lynch on Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire, wrote in the press notes for Dedication about how the legendary director had influenced his own style. So I suppose it's not surprising that Dedication feels like a clumsy attempt at taking elements of Lynch's films and applying them to a romantic comedy. But, well, even Lynch himself isn't famous for his great romantic comedies.

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