The trailer for Richard Linklater's new drama is out today, and the movie looks amazing. Boyhood follows the titular boy, Mason, from ages six to eighteen as he navigates his parents' divorce, being the new kid, and other struggles of growing up.
Some people in Hollywood have spent the last few years making great movies and then there's Johnny Depp. Ever since the fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie in 2011, his career has been on a downward trajectory, and opening-weekend numbers show that his latest, Transcendence, is no exception.
Thanksgiving is upon us, and it's a wonderful reminder of one very important thing: there is no such thing as fun for the whole family. Rather than endure another battle over [insert tired trope here of dinner table argument fodder: racist uncles, womens studies major siblings, Obamacare, etc.], why not take part in the next best American pastime after overeating? Bad movies, of course.
Drudge reports on Fahrenheit 9-11's reception at Cannes, where the enthusiastic French gave filmmaker Michael Moore a 20 minute ovation. Luckily, Drudge had access to "Cannes stalwart" and apparent French Film Festival Overreaction Statistician Thierry Fremaux, who declared the outburst the "longest standing ovation in the history of the festival." The applause (during which Moore was actually drowned out by the crowd) wasn't the only manual stimulation being administered; the film shows a US soldier "grabbing a prisoner's genitals through a blanket," an arcane sexual practice we've always coincidentally referred to as a "French handjob."
Is Scarlett Johansson trying to tell the Hollywood Jailbait Brigade to enjoy their youth while they still can? Reports from the set of Synergy*, which she's filming with Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid, have Scarlett letting her inner child out for a playdate. She's known to throw temper tantrums, fight with her mother, and scribble away her downtime with coloring books in her trailer. (Sort of makes us wonder if the "unsanitary" things she did with Benicio Del Toro involved a sandbox. Those things are filthy.) In any case, as least someone in Hollywood's not growing up too fast.
Gwyneth Paltrow and Chris Martin of Coldplay are now proud parents, as Paltrow gave birth to their first child this weekend. Obviously still addled from a central nervous system full of Demerol, Paltrow named the baby girl Apple (full name: Apple Blythe Alison Martin). Our hearts go out to yet another celebrity offspring burdened by their famous parents' "creativity." As always, things could have been worse; we hear the proud couple wanted to go with "Mango Toaster Paltrow-Martin," but someone in the Screen Actors Guild had already registered under that name. Better luck with the next kid, Gwynnie.
Good Plastic Surgery takes a very close look at the Olsen Twins' noses and concludes that they used a bit of their tween fortune to have a little nip n' tuck performed. Normally, we'd speculate on how long it would take before they went the (supposed) Lindsay Lohan route, but the girls are so skinny that if they got their chests done someone would have to push them around in wheelchairs. Fun fact totally unrelated to this post: Last weekend, Mean Girls earned $14 million, while New York Minute pulled in just $6.2 million.
The headline made our testicles [Ed.note—Or ovaries!] instantly retract in horror: "Stars Face Unmade Beds as Cannes Hotel Staff Strike." Another French strike, this time by hotel workers, and Brad Pitt faces the very real possibility of laying his interview-weary head down on last night's pillow case.
Motormouth auteur/amateur pugilist Quentin Tarantino, this year's head juror at the Cannes Film Festival, admitted to cold-cocking a security guard there in 1992. "I am trying to cleverly push my way in and all of a sudden this French guy with a tuxedo and a red bow tie pushes me in the chest. I am from Los Angeles. We have the LAPD there. These red bow tie guys don't show me anything. So I took a swing at the guy." It took five security guards to restrain him.
Continuing our leisurely morning stroll through the trades...
We'd love to take credit for the recent American jailbait craze spreading to the Continent. Unfortunately for Defamer, the French have a much longer history of inappropriately sexualizing the young in film and probably thought this up all by themselves.
This is what happens when you leave Quentin Tarantino alone for even a minute—if he's not running off to Japan to film a two-part epic splatterfest, he's insinuating himself into a music video to give those silent-acting chops a whirl. Drew's Blog-o-rama points us to Tarantino's starring turn in a Leonard Cohen video. Warning to those of you with heart problems, mild food allergies, or eyes: Beware a shirtless Tarantino engaging in a love scene near the end of the video. One day, they'll probably use the footage of his pigeon chest to slow population growth in China.
Continuing the proud literary tradition of Ethan Hawke, actor/former Michael Jackson playdate Macaulay Culkin has written a novel. Junior will be released by Miramax books next spring and will reportedly be based on Culkin's life. Defamer, as always, is right on top of things and has already obtained this excerpt:
Are you tired of looking at old pictures of your governor's shockingly out-of-proportion genitalia, which would look more appropriate on an East German swimmer than an action star? We know that we are. We must have wasted an hour yesterday, holding some calipers up to the monitor to try and translate the on-screen representation of Governor Arnold's "raw deal" into real-life inches. (We're not exactly sure the calipers would help, but we wanted the people in the library's other Internet terminals to think we were up to something scientific.)
This might be the strangest thing we come across all day. Page Six reports that a "mysterious" group of European backers have approached Mel Gibson about a possible takeover of Disney, impressed at how Gibson turned two hours of a billion Christians' personal savior getting his ass kicked into huge financial gains.
Our pristine national pasttime has finally been penetrated by Hollywood's tainted lucre. ESPN reports (via a WSJ story) that advertising for Spider-Man 2 will be littered about major league baseball stadiums this summer. Webbed logos will appear on the bases and the batters' on-deck circles during play, and covers bearing advertising will be placed over home plate and the pitching rubber before the games start.
