Dear, sweet, precious, life-sustaining alcohol has starred in more movies and TV shows than any actor or actress could ever hope to star in. And tonight let us give the nectar of the gods its due. What's your favorite hooch scene? As ever, I'll humbly recommend one after the jump.
Borat helmsman Larry Charles says he intends to "destroy" organized religion with his newest flick, Religulous, starring Bill Maher. "I don't think 'debunk" is the right word,' he says. "I want to destroy more than debunk, just destroy the whole system." Maher chimed in: "I was raised a Catholic. But by the time I became an adult, scientific thought and rational evidence led me to believe otherwise. You know, when I was a kid and got a cavity I had mercury drilled into my teeth. Then, when I got older, they drilled it out-you can do the same with religion." Such mavericks! The fact that it's a Borat-style "documentary" in which dumbasses are strung up by their own words has dumbasses everywhere complaining even before it hits theaters.
In honor of this week's total meltdown of our economy—and the fact that Bush/McCain expects us to pay to bail out the fuckers who caused it—let us focus on the stripe-shirted, bottle service-loving, date-raping, trust-funded, Ivy League pieces of human waste who made it happen. Don't get too caught up in the mercurial definition of "douchebag" when selecting clips of horrible people in movies and TV, since it's a rather recently popular term. Just think of the douchebag as anyone who hasn't really earned their own money, has horrible taste, is insanely crass, and gets off on being a shit to other people. We've had them all through the ages. Because there is no way an uninspired idiot like Jakob Lodwick could have invented them just to categorize himself. I'll get us rolling after the jump. Update: Forget the "moneyed" part. Douchebags exist in every social strata, and some of them are female as well.
If you want William Shatner in your little movie, respect that he is the greatest actor in Hollywood and the most important thing since movable type and give the man a real freaking role! Director J.J. Abrams learned that the hard way when he tried to squeeze the living legend into some bit cameo part in his upcoming Star Trek remake. Abrams agrees with Shatner that he's too much man for a walk-on in any Star Trek project, but he just couldn't make something bigger happen for the original James Tiberius Kirk. "It was very tricky," Abrams told the L.A. Times. "We actually had written a scene with him in it that was a flashback kind of thing, but the truth is, it didn't quite feel right. The bigger thing was that he was very vocal that he didn't want to do a cameo. We tried desperately to put him in the movie, but he was making it very clear that he wanted the movie to focus on him significantly, which, frankly, he deserves." The director was responding to an earlier comment Shatner had made about the newest Star Trek offering: "There is no need for me to know anything because I'm not a part of it." [UPI]
The original movie poster for the new Kevin Smith flick, Zack and Miri Make a Porno, was banned by the MPAA earlier this month because it conjured the terrifying image of Seth Rogen receiving a b.j., which is not safe for kids or anyone else. Now the new version of the poster (pictured) is out: the old "so hot you have to see it for yourself" trick. They still face the problem of having "titillating" and "Seth Rogen" in the same sentence, though. There's no way out. Click through to relive the magic of the banned original, if you like:
Last week, crazy former New York Mayor Ed Koch delivered the best put-down of Rudy Giulinai since Joe Biden mentioned Rudy's inability to speak a sentence that doesn't have "9/11" in it: Koch noted America's Mayor's "maniacal laugh" and declared that it reminded him of the unsettling giggle of Richard Widmark "carrying out his role in the movie Kiss of Death. I saw once again the scene in which Widmark, playing Tommy Udo, a killer, pushed a wheelchair in which an old woman was sitting and, laughing maniacally, shoved it off the top of the stairs with its occupant still in it." That's our Rudy! In case you're not familiar with either the film in question or Rudy Giuliani, our video team spliced together the relevant menacing giggles. Enjoy!
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.
Fashion tragedy! Halston, the glamorous 70s brand that mogul Harvey Weinstein was planning to revive with relentless sexiness, is not lighting the world on fire just yet. Harvey paid $25 million for Halston last year, but its latest collection got "largely unenthusiastic reviews"—a problem the company decided to solve by reining in its creative director and moving towards design-by-committee. Which always works well in creative endeavors, yes! For Weinstein, Halston so far is just another disappointing investment, along with his "Myspace for Millionaires" and his DVD business. Free solution, Harvey: get them to wear Halston on Project Runway. You can send a check to our office. [WSJ]
Last night's New York movies and TV post seemed to make people happy, so it would be kind of unfair to ignore our main competition as a location for silver and little screen productions. Besides, it's a wise blogger who holds onto a promising theme until it's bled dry. So! La-la Land, Hollywood, City of Angels... the choices are practically endless. Heck, that's where they make all the movies and TV shows! What's your favorite? I'll get us going after the jump.
A location can be as much the star of a movie or television show as the actors and actresses whose names top the credits. And New York is perhaps the biggest star ever (Yes, I know there are many other starry cities, but tonight we're doing NYC). So, what's your favorite movie or TV show where the Big Apple and its culture, sensibility, and aesthetic is intrinsic to the narrative? Mine is after the jump.
The MPAA, the cabal charged with protecting American decency through movie regulation, has banned a promo poster for the upcoming Kevin Smith and Seth Rogen flick Zack And Miri Make A Porno, just before its debut in Toronto. Too blowjob-y. Considering the film's title, the only surprise is that the poster was so bland. But not bland enough! Now the forbidden ad will be seen only in Canada, as well as on dozens and dozens of websites, including this one:
Don LaFontaine, one of the best voice actors in history, is dead at 68. LaFontaine began writing and voicing movie trailers in the late 1960s, inventing, supposedly, most of the beloved and hilarious cliches ("in a world," "one man stands...") that still introduce us to whatever summer Hollywood garbage we'll be enjoying this Fourth of July. There are countless amusing LaFontaine parodies, commercials, and jokey news segments available on YouTube, but it seems more appropriate to enjoy his work on its own merits, not just as camp. So here's the classic theatrical trailer for The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.
Now please don't worry about any PC nonsense. I checked with the Council of Elders and everything's cool. So, Jews! Jewish characters, actors, actresses-anything goes! So long as it's funny or moving or even just plain controversial. And note, I'm going with my first pick because the character is clearly such a Jew, not because the actor is, but do feel free to use any reasoning you like when choosing your clips.
Today has been rather grim. Everything in the news is politics and disaster. And the last weekend of the summer is supposed to be fun! So, here is the broadest One More Thing theme ever: Funny. Just post funny things from movies-any movie from anytime ever. Please, please, please let's crack each other up and forget about all the tedious and ominous crap for a while? I will start us off.
Several months ago, Brad Pitt fired his flack. His other half, Angelina Jolie, doesn't have a dedicated, full time PR rep herself either. The fact that the couple generally gets great press anyhow raises the obvious question: if Brangelina doesn't need a publicist, who does? The nuanced answer has to do with the changing nature of the celebrity media and the shifting balance of power among various types of Hollywood insiders. The blunt answer is, "Very few Hollywood people need flacks any more." Disintermediation is the new black! When you think of celebrity media today, think of two words: OK! magazine. Its entire business model is based on working *with* celebrities to come up with the nicest, most agreeable presentation possible. OK! is so celebrity-friendly it is edited by a former celebrity flack.
Why the hell have we written so much about Tucker Max? Because you want to read it! What started out as nothing more than a one-off request to have a look at a bad movie script has blossomed into full-blown miniseries chronicling the many dimensions of our bro Tucker's internet-famous personality. But why did anyone care about this rather pedestrian guy in the first place? Schadenfreude is involved, we suspect. We've taken the time to delve into the psychology of this pressing issue below, in the Gawker Field Guide To Tucker Max. Complete with photos from Tucker's incredible life! Who is he?
After Fark.com's Drew Curtis sent us a firsthand account last week of life on the set of I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell, the upcoming comedic movie masterpiece written by fratire dude Tucker Max, another crew member followed up with his own list of gripes to us about working under a first-time movie maker who's also one of America's foremost assholes. I enjoy these leaks because-unlike our own in-house appraisals of Tucker's style-they come from people with no real ideological reason to dislike the man. Some people just want to work in peace! After the jump, our tipster's account of Tucker Max-"usually pricks like him are surrounded by pricks," he says, but in this case, "there's just one dick and he's a big one."
Oh yay, the trailer for New York, I Love You, the new movie about "Love in New York" (hah hah, actual monster sightings are more likely).* New York, I Love You features not only an ensemble cast — Ethan Hawke, Blake Lively, Orlando Bloom, Rachel Bilson, Olivia Thirlby of Juno/The Wackness fame, Christina Ricci and so many more indie movie people you felt manipulated into having liked in their first one or two movies before you realized they were narcissistic assholes (duh) and dumb (duh) — but also an ensemble bunch of directors, among them Scarlett Johansson and Natalie Portman! Here is the movie's most profound thought thus far leaked:
Fun fact: Drew Curtis, the guy who runs linky website Fark, went to high school for one year with professional asshole (but not moron) blogger-turned-film writer Tucker Max. So Drew somehow got handed a cameo role in I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. Drew-who's big enough on the internet to not give a fuck what we or Tucker Max think-sent us a full report, saying Tucker is "out of control" but the actors are doing a good job, considering the material they're working with. And pictures! Click through now: The actors at work (Tucker character in white t-shirt):
The central section of Greenwich Village, near that haven for nostalgic expats called Tea & Sympathy, has always drawn the English. A 1902 New York Times guide to the 'British Quarter' describes rather unflatteringly the neighborhood's inhabitants: "ruddy, grizzled, thick-necked, opinionated and slangy." We owe this vignette to Toby Young, the famously unsuccessful Vanity Fair writer who parlayed his failure in New York into an amusing book, How To Lose Friends And Alienate People, the basis for an upcoming movie starring Simon Pegg and Jeff Bridges.
