Anthony Jake Murray, 27/M/midair, waited for five days in the cold last May to show off his freakish running, jumping, and climbing skills on the American Ninja Warrior obstacle course, only to have his dream denied.
Teens these days: they're watching this Miley Cyrus person, they're becoming interested in sexual activity, they're ... they're twerking. One high school principal has had enough. Mount Anthony Union High School's fearless leader Sue Maguire canceled this fall's homecoming dance because of this "highly sexualized form of dancing."
Over thirty students at Scripps Ranch High School in San Diego have been suspended after allegedly using school equipment to film a twerking video.
Everyone's favorite fantasist has gone and made a stealth film. Also today: Melanie Griffith gets a new gig, so does Jenna Elfman, and E! embarks on a terrible new journey.
A huge record-setting debut for the third movie in the Paranormal Activity franchise means that Halloween is upon us. Also today: The robots continue to fight on, Footloose keeps dancing, and the Musketeers meet their match.
Though they had spirit and moxie and other youthful energies on their side, the kids of Footloose proved no match for Real Steel's battle bots in the box office arena. RIP, Ren.
The autumn movie onslaught continues, with bird watchers, shape-shifting monsters, and dancing teens all herding into the multiplex. So forget that hayride or apple picking outing and go see a damn movie instead.
The much-dreaded (by some, at least) remake of the 1984 teen classic turns out to be, with an injection of youth, quite spry indeed. It's an old story made refreshingly new. But not too new.
With the Labor Day holiday approaching, it's becoming sadly clear: Summer is over. It's time to turn to autumnal things. That's not all bad, though! Fall movies, for example, are usually the year's best. Let's take a look at this year's selection, shall we?
Here's a trailer for Footloose—yes, that Footloose—which will ruin your childhood when it hits theaters in October. The remake, produced by MTV, stars newcomer Kenny Wormald as Ren, Dancing with the Stars' Julianne Hough as Ariel, and Dennis Quaid as Ariel's dance-banning preacher father. There's dancing! And driving! And fighting!
Today we have some bad news about Footloose, some good news about The Fighter, and some unexpected surprises from old friends.
With its star's $42 million worth of opening-weekend muscle and the all-important Kevin Bacon blessing behind it, Zac Efron and his Footloose remake are leaping to the front of the development queue at Paramount. The updating of the studio's 1984 high-school dance melodrama, which has been idle at the studio for years without that singular, Bacon-esque talent to guide it to market, now has a rewrite on the way, new songs in the works and one heartthrob to rule them all — for a price, notes Variety.Efron could pull in mid-seven figures for Footloose — by far his biggest payday to date — in addition to script approval for the story of Ren McCormack, a surly city kid whose relocation to a Midwest hellhole where dancing is banned ignites a particularly well-choreographed civil-disobedience streak. Dirty Dancing's Kenny Ortega is attached to direct while Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist director Peter Sollett is polishing the screenplay. All of which are secondary details, we know, to the burning questions of what will survive from Bacon's star-making original. The soundtrack will reportedly retain hits including "Let's Hear it for the Boy" and "Holding Out For a Hero," but more importantly, what arrhythmic schlub will replace the late Chris Penn in the first song's requisite dance-instruction montage? And does Efron have the brooding edge to own the latter tune's cutthroat, tractor-centric game of chicken? The End of Ideas jury is still out on this one, but if Efron vetoes the bleacher make-out session to "Almost Paradise," expect trouble. The guy has to get to second base eventually.
What was hilarious dance flick Footloose really about? "It was about fighting against oppression," actress Lori Singer explained to a nodding Matt Lauer today. "Trying to stop us from dancing. Kevin, can you imagine? Trying to prevent us from reading books. All kinds of things." After the movie, Singer even got a call from a town that was actually trying to ban dancing! Wasilla, Alaska. Ha, no really it was a town in Texas: Crawford, home of GW Bush. Not really. That would've been fun though. Click to watch the original cast of Footloose reflect on their achievement in America's struggle for liberation.
So if someone told you that, as a memorial to a friend's dead sister, they'd recorded a mournful, twinkly cover of the entire soundtrack to the 1980's homo carnival Footloose (a movie about John Lithgow bellowing about the evils of dancing and Kevin Bacon boldly and baconly defying him), what would you think? Well, we are faced with that stumper today, as we've stumbled upon a musician called Doveman who has done just that.
· Hollywood Out of Ideas, Molesting Bacon Edition: Paramount is remaking Footloose as (in the words of Var) "a full-blown musical" starring High School Musical's Zac Efron, who we're sure will one day go on to become the Kevin Bacon of the Disney Channel generation. [Variety]
· Fox Atomic acquires the comedy Don't Lean on Me, the story of a high school gym teacher who is reluctantly promoted to principal. We'd uncharitably compare it to Summer School, but someone's already defiling resurrecting that classic of our early teenage years. [THR]
· Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix rolls out today on more than 9,000 screens, marking the widest opening in Warner Bros. history. Huzzah! But sadly, as a sequel, it stands no chance of breaking Transformers' impressive first-week box office record. [Variety]
· In a rebranding effort that will forever change the way you perceive the channel where you watch Most Shocking, Body of Evidence, and L.A. Forensics, Court TV is rechristening itself truTV. [Variety]
· NBC's Singing Bee, which endeavors to recreate for viewers the experience of what it would be like to spend eternity in Hell's most popular karaoke bar, starts strong, improving upon on its America's Got Talent lead-in. We are all doomed. For real this time. Oh, and we almost forgot: Fox's nearly identical Don't Forget the Lyrics debuts tonight. [Variety]
