"The Master": creepy Joaquin Phoenix and crazy music
(Mon, 21 May 2012 17:06:18 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Paul Thomas Anderson has finally given audiences a look at his next picture "The Master," a sure-to-be-controversial look at the origins of a religion that sounds a whole lot like Scientology. The sneak peek features a zonked-out Joaquin Phoenix being grilled by a naval officer about his misbehavior while off-kilter music plays on the soundtrack. The whole thing is mighty unsettling. ...

Singer Plan B in Cannes with debut movie Ill Manors
(Mon, 21 May 2012 05:45:59 -0400)
CANNES, France (Reuters) - The Cannes film festival is a world way from the tough streets of east London where British rapper Ben Drew grew up, but the 28-year-old has come to the glamorous Riviera resort to promote his debut movie "Ill Manors". The hard-hitting drama follows six interweaving lives -- junkie, drug dealer, ex-con, gangster, prostitute and central character Aaron, a kind of moral compass amid the violence, fear and abuse around him. ...

Mila Kunis stalker enters not guilty plea
(Fri, 18 May 2012 18:50:46 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 27 year-old man pleaded not guilty on Friday to stalking "Black Swan" actress Mila Kunis at her gym despite a previous court order to stay away. Stuart Lynn Dunn could face up to four years in prison if convicted of stalking Kunis and violating a previous restraining order. Dunn was first arrested in January when he broke into a vacant apartment owned by Kunis in West Hollywood. He pleaded no contest was told to stay away from the actress. But he was arrested again in May after showing up for three days at a gym to try and make contact with her, police said. ...

"Hysteria" is a feel-good victorian vibrator comedy
(Thu, 17 May 2012 18:48:37 -0400)
(Some sexual content throughout) LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Hysteria" is a fun fling of a movie about medical science at its shakiest. Literally. This amusing period comedy chronicles the invention of the vibrator in the late Victorian era, when doctors used early versions of the electrical device to bring women to sexual satisfaction. This was done in the name of treating women thought to be suffering from "hysteria," a vague diagnostic catch-all that covered pretty much all female complaints from melancholia to mania. ...

"What to Expect" no better than pickles and ice cream
(Thu, 17 May 2012 18:47:51 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - It's said that the only reason women are capable of giving birth more than once is that they forget about the pains of labor once it's all over. Here's hoping that audiences unfortunate enough to see "What to Expect When You're Expecting" undergo a similar bout of amnesia. This insipid comedy uses the best-selling pregnancy guide as a jumping-off point for multiple overlapping storylines, almost all of them banal, trite and hackneyed. ...

Relativity acquires Liam Hemsworth thriller "Paranoia"
(Thu, 17 May 2012 19:31:55 -0400)
NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Relativity Media has acquired domestic rights to "Paranoia" starring Liam Hemsworth, Gary Oldman, Harrison Ford and Lucas Till. IM Global is handling international rights for the thriller, which stars Hemsworth as a blue-collar worker trying to move up the ladder at Wyatt Telecom. His boss catches him committing a crime, and Adam must spy on the competition to keep his secret. Jason Dean Hall penned the script based on the novel by Joseph Finder. ...

Review: sheer adrenaline keeps "Battleship" afloat
(Thu, 17 May 2012 18:46:58 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - As a defender of the 1985 comedy "Clue," I can't automatically reject the idea of basing a feature film on a board game. But the game Clue comes with characters and a plot and a house. Battleship comes with a grid and boats and pegs. All those things turn up in "Battleship," a big, loud, stupid Hollywood movie that winds up looking all the better by virtue of not being as elephantine and deafening and moronic as a Michael Bay "Transformers" adventure. ...

Peter Berg discusses bringing "Battleship" to film
(Thu, 17 May 2012 16:36:56 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Peter Berg parlayed successful acting work on TV shows like medical drama "Chicago Hope" to an even greater directing career of movies such as "Friday Night Lights," which later became a TV series, and the Will Smith action flick "Hancock." On Friday, Berg's latest film, alien-invasion actioner "Battleship," steams into theaters. It takes its title from the Hasbro board game in which two players engage in a guessing game to see who can sink the other's naval ships. ...

Philip Roth's "American Pastoral" to be movie
(Thu, 17 May 2012 14:13:33 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Philip Roth's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "American Pastoral" will be made into a movie from director Fisher Stevens. The book is one of Roth's most critically heralded and offers a look at the social upheavals of the 1960s and 70s as seen through the eyes of a once legendary high school athlete, Seymour "Swede" Levov. "American Pastoral" helped kick off a career renaissance for the author and is the first novel in Roth's American postwar trilogy - a grouping that also includes "I Married a Communist" and "The Human Stain. ...

UCLA Film Festival honors "Hugo" and "Walking Dead" makers
(Thu, 17 May 2012 16:49:17 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "The Walking Dead" producer Gale Anne Hurd and "Hugo" screenwriter John Logan are among those who will be honored at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television Film Festival this year. Hurd and Logan will be joined by fellow honoree Julie Dash, director of "Daughters of the Dust" and "The Rosa Parks Story." Dash, a UCLA MFA '85 graduate, will receive the Distinguished Alumnus Award during the festival's opening night on June 8 at the James Bridges Theater. ...

Jack Black and Shirley MacLaine reunite in "Wild Oats"
(Thu, 17 May 2012 16:48:40 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Jack Black must have really enjoyed working with Shirley MacLaine on the recent indie comedy "Bernie," because he's already planning a cinematic reunion with his brassy co-star. The "School of Rock" funnyman is in talks to join MacLaine in "Wild Oats" for director Howard Deutch ("Pretty in Pink"). The film's cast also includes Jacki Weaver, who earned an Oscar nomination for her villainous turn in "Animal Kingdom," and Academy Award winner Alan Arkin ("Little Miss Sunshine"). "Wild Oats" is billed as a cross between "Sideways" and "Thelma and Louise. ...

Andy Garcia joins Anchor Bay for "Admissions"
(Thu, 17 May 2012 16:39:52 -0400)
NEW YORK (TheWrap.com) - Anchor Bay Film has partnered with Andy Garcia's CineSon productions for the upcoming romantic comedy "Admissions." Garcia and Vera Farmiga will star as two strangers who develop an extraordinary relationship in the course of a day. Farmiga portrays Edith, a mom accompanying her daughter on a college tour, while Garcia is George, joining his son on the same tour. Anchor Bay and CineSon released "City Island," which Garcia starred in and produced. ...