I don't know how I missed this, but back in December, the New York Times published its Hollywood Issue of the New York Times Magazine and its centerpiece was titled “Touch of Evil”, featuring some of the year’s best actors as classic Hollywood villains. The actors all had their choice of roles and designed the scenarios with photographer/videographer Alex Prager and Kathy Ryan, the NYT director of photography. Sometimes a role or a ‘type’ was suggested to them, and they accepted or sometimes they had something or someone specific in mind. I thought it a fitting companion to yesterdays post, Time Rounds Up the Great Performances of the Year.

Take a look at the photo above.

1.Jack Nance as Henry Spencer in David Lynch’s Eraserhead (1977). 2. Images of invisible men, including The Invisible Man (1933) and a photo of the Chinese artist Liu Bolin (in front of the taxi van). 3. The ventriloquist’s dummy Fats from Magic (1978). 4. Louise Fletcher as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975). 5. Michael Douglas as Gordon Gekko in Wall Street (1987). 6. Charles Laughton as Captain Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). 7. Dominique Sanda as Anna Quadri in Bernardo Bertolucci’s Conformist (1970). 8. The silent film star Pina Menichelli. 9.Catherine Deneuve as Carole in Roman Polanski’s Repulsion (1965). 10. Faye Dunaway as Bonnie Parker in Bonnie and Clyde (1967). 11. Malcolm McDowell as Alex in A Clockwork Orange  (1971). 12. A still from Green Street Hooligans (2005). 13. Lana Turner as Cora Smith in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946).

These are the characters channeled by George Clooney as The Tyrant, Mia Wasikowska as the Home Wrecker, Brad Pitt as the Madman, Rooney Mara as the Sociopath, Gary Oldman as the Menacing Dummy, Kirsten Dunst as the Siren, Jean Dujardin as the Hothead, Glenn Close as the Vamp, Viola Davis as the Vengeful Caretaker, Jessica Chastain as the Fire Starter, Ryan Gosling as the Invisible Man and Michael Shannon as the Tycoon. 

Gary Oldman as the Dummy is perfection. (Anyone see Magic with Anthony Hopkins? Spot. Freaking. On.), Brad Pitt surprised the hell out of me. Another spot on performance and genuinely f*cking creepy! Clooney was having a larf even as a villain, as was Gosling. Shannon was doing a take on Agent Van Alden (Boardwalk Empire) if you ask me. (And don’t get me started on the fact that his “Best Performances” only listed Take Shelter – and he was brilliant, don’t misunderstand- but whatever anyone thinks of the movie, he was by all accounts fantastic as Donnie in Machine Gun Preacher. Mia Wasikowska has Restless listed in her credits and while she may have been exceptional, the movie was, by general consensus, not. Sorry. I guess I got started anyway). Glenn Close is a little long in the tooth for “The Vamp”, although she did look fantastic in the stills. By far the best performance though, was Viola Davis'. The bugs! How the hell did she do that?? And that was one hell of a good Nurse Ratched.

Watch the slideshow for the stills, but you MUST watch the video for the performances.

Here are a few of the pics including a couple from behind the scenes. Enjoy!

Stay connected with us! Follow us on Twitter, fan us on Facebook, grab our RSS feed, or subscribe to us via a News Reader. We would love to hear from you.

I love listening to intelligent, talented, self-aware (but not self-important) actors talking about their craft and their process. One of the reasons I adore Viola Davis is that she is so fiercely intelligent and well-spoken.  Unlike athletes, whom I would prefer were never allowed to speak (well, not never but certainly not into a microphone), I find it fascinating to hear actors, the kind of people who speak for a living, talk about the things or the people that inspire them. Since it is their job to move an audience, I want to know what moves them. Actors go to the movies too. What do they feel when sitting in the dark and watching a particular performance? Do they relax and enjoy or are they critiquing? Were they moved by the same things that moved me?

Time magazine, in celebration of Oscar month, has gathered together some of the actors who gave the best performances of the year. While most of them are Oscar nominated, it is very teling that one of the included actors, who did indeed give one of the best performances of the year, is Michael Fassbender, who as we know, was NOT nominated. We also know how I feel about that slight. It would appear that TIME agrees with me.  I could go on and on about each of the actors included in this clip,  I’ll let them speak for themselves.  (I love that they included Uggie!)

Enjoy the video. Then go to the link and read the very entertaining copy. To hell with the best performance by an actor,  I just know they're going to hand George Clooney an Oscar for being the coolest guy on the planet.

By the way, the video was shot by Sebastian Kim who photographed Michael Fassbender for that incendiary cover of Interview magazine.

Stay connected with us! Follow us on Twitter, fan us on Facebook, grab our RSS feed, or subscribe to us via a News Reader. We would love to hear from you.

Brad Pitt is talking about his love for Angelina Jolie again and how, despite protestations that they wouldn't marry until all people could marry, he is saying that it's getting harder and harder for them not to be married:

“We’d actually like to,” he says of his seven-year partner, Jolie, “and it seems to mean more and more to our kids. We made this declaration some time ago that we weren’t going to do it till everyone can. But I don’t think we’ll be able to hold out. It means so much to my kids, and they ask a lot. And it means something to me, too, to make that kind of commitment.” Has he asked Jolie to marry him? “I’m not going to go any further,” says Pitt. “But to be in love with someone and be raising a family with someone and want to make that commitment and not be able to is ludicrous, just ludicrous.”

Brad Pitt breaking a promise? Get out of the city! 

While it really does appear that these two are in love, do you sometimes think it's overkill (meaning over compensating)? And don't worry they may be spawning or adopting in the future:

We haven’t closed the book on it. There’s a really nice balance in the house right now, but if we see the need and get that lightning bolt that says, ‘We can help this person; we could do something here,’ then absolutely.” It was while carrying Vivienne — one of his children, many adopted, whose ages range from 3 to 10 — that Pitt fell and hurt his knee, causing him to walk with the cane his friend George Clooney spoofed during the Golden Globes. It wasn’t a skiing accident, contrary to reports. “I think George went down the line, making things up,” Pitt laughs. “I was just walking in our backyard, on a hill, carrying my daughter, and I slipped — and it was those parental instincts: me or her. And she’s fine.” 

I can see their wedding invitation: in lieu of gifts please provide children for us to adopt. Head on over to The Hollywood Reporter for the rest of the interview.

Stay connected with us! Follow us on Twitter, fan us on Facebook or subscribe to our RSS feed. We would love to hear from you.

Source

Sorry, I’m late to this party but my internet was down for most of the day yesterday. (I’ve finally stopped shaking.) The Producers Guild Awards were held Saturday night January 21 at The Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, the last stop on the circuit before the Academy Award nominations are announced (which they will be tomorrow morning). (That’s not to say it’s the last stop before the ceremony by any stretch. This coming Sunday we have the SAG awards to get through.) The Producers Guild Awards ceremony is different because it’s all about the films, or the television shows.  It’s about the finished product.  This might be why the winner of Producer of the Year is so often the producer of the Best Picture winner at the Oscars.

I’ve been saying for months that it’s going to come down to a battle between The Descendants and The Artist. (Which, by the way, has nothing to do with how I feel about those two films personally. I’m just psychic.) A fine point was pretty much put on that idea when the former won the Golden Globe for Best Drama and the latter won for Best Musical or Comedy.  The Artist got another leg up from the PGA when it won out over The Descendants and Thomas Langmann walked away with the Darryl F. Zanuck Award for Outstanding Producer of Theatrical Motion Pictures of the Year honors.

I can’t remember when I’ve been looking forward to the Oscar nominations less than I am this year, with one exception. I’ll be biting my nails to find out if Michael Fassbender gets a nod or if Demian Bichir takes his slot again (as he did with the SAGs). He’s the only “outsider” with a chance. The one performance that I would have thought would have been a lock has been virtually and inexplicably shut out, and that’s Vanessa Redgrave in Coriolanus.  Would I love to be wrong? You bet I would. We’ll see.

In the meantime, enjoy the pretty pictures of some of the pretty people at Saturday night’s bash. Many of them didn’t walk the red carpet (just to show how serious the proceedings are. Plus I think George Clooney's squeeze had a prior committment. God forbid he should be seen solo), but we have some shots of Morticia and Gomez…I mean Angie and Brad, as well as Jessica Chastain looking very Jessica Rabbit (practicing for her Oscar look perhaps), Viola Davis looking absolutely stunning as always and Shailene Woodley looking old beyond her years. Someone get that girl a stylist!

Stay connected with us! Follow us on Twitter, fan us on Facebook or subscribe to our RSS feed. We would love to hear from you.

Brad Pitt 48, is rocking a rugged Fabio-like look on the cover of W Magazine. I have to admit Brad doesn't do anything to my lady parts but I'm liking this look for him. It's not so pretty if you know what I mean. Would you kick Brad out of bed for eating crackers? Probably not. 

He and life partner Angelina Jolie will appear at tomorrow night's Golden Globe Awards where his movie Moneyball is up for Best Motion Picture Drama and he's up for Best Actor in a Drama along with pal George Clooney. The two are apparently supposed to present at the awards as well. 

Stay connected with us! Follow us on Twitter, fan us on Facebook or subscribe to our RSS feed. We would love to hear from you.

Numbers are limited but there are a couple of heavy hitters in the lineup this week. (A couple of baseball metaphors, get it?) The biggest among them is of course, Bennett Miller’s Moneyball starring Brad Pitt, Jonah Hill and Philip Seymour Hoffman. While I wasn’t as blown away by this story of Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to put together a baseball club on a budget by employing computer-generated analysis to draft his players as the critics have been, it is very entertaining. I'm a huge baseball fan and it's great fun to get a peak at the inner workings of the sport and what appear to an outsider as arbitrary decisions, especially since I remember some of the incidents portrayed in the film.  Moneyball has been nominated for 3 Golden Globes and it’s being billed as one of Brad Pitt’s greatest performances. I suppose that’s true and I will say that it is one of the few times I was able to forget I was watching Brad Pitt, world's sexiest DILF, and get into the character. I also have to say that I liked Jonah Hill’s performance because it was understated and unexpected. This is a very different Jonah Hill than you’re probably used to seeing.

I am, an unabashed Philip Seymour Hoffman fan. One of the reasons Hoffman is always so interesting to watch is that he always seems a powder keg just one spark away from blowing. One never knows whether to take his character at face value or not.

Here Hoffman is directed by his Capote director who guided him to a Best Actor Oscar. The words are by Steve Zaillian and Aaron Sorkin. Both pluses.

If sports films aren’t your thing, then don’t worry because the action thriller The Killer Elite (Jason Statham, Clive Owen, and Robert DeNiro) which we told you about last week, will also be available.

I suppose I should also let you know that the romantic comedy What’s Your Number? with Anna Faris, Chris Evans, and Ed Begly, Jr. is also out today. What you do with this information is up to you.

There are some direct to video titles out this week as well. Again, watch at your own peril. I can’t be held responsible for anything. Actually, I’m exaggerating. There are a couple of titles that may not have gotten a lot of attention, but are worth your time. You decide.

 -Scorpion King: Battle for Redemption (Billy Zane, Victor Webster, and Ron Perlman) Since his rise to power, Mathayus' kingdom has fallen. Now an assassin for hire, he must defend a kingdom from an evil tyrant and his ghost warriors for the chance to regain the power and glory he once knew.

-Higher Ground (Vera Farmiga, Joshua Leonard, and Dagmara Dominczyk ) Actually, this one I do recommend. It played a number of festivals to great acclaim and had an extremely limited run back in August. Not unusual for a small art-house film. Farmiga made her directorial debut with this story of the landscape of a tight-knit spiritual community thrown off-kilter when one of their own begins to question her faith. Inspired by screenwriter Carolyn S. Briggs' memoir “This Dark World”, the film tells the story of a thoughtful woman's struggles with belief, love, and trust – in human relationships as well as in God.

-There Be Dragons (Wes Bentley, Dougray Scott, and Charlie Cox) We told you about this one last summer after it played the Cannes Film Festival and I fully expected to see this story, billed as an epic portrayal of faith, forgiveness and redemption, in theaters. The synopsis: Arising out of the horror of the Spanish Civil War, a candidate for canonization is investigated by a journalist who discovers his own estranged father had a deep, dark and devastating connection to the saint's life.

It’s got a great pedigree. Along with Bentley, Scott and Cox, the film stars Olga Kurylenko, Rodrigo Santoro and Geraldine Chaplin. It was written, directed and produced by Roland Joffe (The Killing Fields, The Mission).

-An Idiot Abroad (Ricky Gervais, Karl Pilkington, and Stephen Merchant) A boxed set of the UK television series.

-Saints and Sinners (Sean Patrick Flannery and Tom Berenger) In the gritty New Orleans underbelly, beleaguered Detective Sean Riley (Johnny Strong – Black Hawk Down, The Fast and the Furious) is trying to cope with the death of his young son and his failed marriage. Facing a probable suspension from the department, Riley is teamed with a young homicide Detective, Will Ganz (Flannery), to help solve a series of brutal murders that have plunged the city into a major gang war. The two quickly realize there is something much bigger and far more sinister going on than either could have ever imagined.

There, now you have something to do over the weekend. (A long one for most of us here in the States.)

The 23rd Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, which typically honors some of the year’s best films and filmmakers, held their Awards Gala, last night which featured the likes of Gary Oldman, Brad Pitt, George Clooney, Al Pacino, Glenn Close and Tom Hanks, to name just a few.

Melissa McCarthy gave Octavia Spencer was given the Breakthrough Performance Award for The Help. (How that didn’t go to Jessica Chastain is beyond me. She was there, giving her Salome director, Al Pacino an award. And what the f*ck is up with his hair?!?)  Stephen Daldry won Director of the Year for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, which was presented by his star, Tom Hanks.

Adrien Brody, who has gotten rid of the scruff (which somehow makes me sad), awarded Gary Oldman the International Star Award. (It seems to me that they come up with awards to hand out to the major players of any given year. There can only be one “Best Actor” so they figure out some other way to get the stars on the red carpet, like having them hand out the awards. The whole thing is essentially a practice run for the carpet outside the Kodak Theater in February.)

Brody handed the award to Oldman then they both pretended to smoke from the thing since it looks like bong. Oldman joked, "It's true. I may smoke this later." To which Brody replied, "If you want to pass that while you speak, I can take care of that for you."

George Clooney, as he accepted the Chairman’s Award agreed, "They're right, this does look like a bong! Thanks for this!" He also had something to say about Oldman's remarkable acting career. "Keep acting Gary Oldman, you're f*cking it up for the rest of us."

Patton Oswalt accepted the Vanguard Award for the cast of Young Adult. When he remarked on Charlize Theron's ability to transform herself into a serial killer in Monster as well as her character in Young Adult, Theron snuck up behind him and growled. Good to know they don’t dislike each other as much as the red carpet photos would seem to indicate. In fact Theron jokingly passed Oswalt a note for him to read: “She's really awesome. She's really nice and she did not hit me with a rolled up copy of Rolling Stone when I mentioned 'Aeon Flux.'"

Jonah Hill introduced his Moneyball co-star Brad Pitt by talking about Tree of Life. "I've seen it three times, and I have no idea what it’s about".

Pitt came back with, "And thank you to my lover, Jonah Hill. Ass." Speaking of Pitt, he and Angie did the red carpet thing and just when I think they look like they’ve been replaced by their Madame Tussaud’s replicas, they do something genuine. Check out that ‘awwww’ inducing pic below.

My new crush is Jean DuJardin, the star of The Artist who was there, along with costar Berenice Bejo, to support the director Michael Hazanavicius.  (Bejo is also Hazanavicius’ partner.) He’s adorable!  Someone find him something to do in English. *spoiler alert* I want to hear more of “With pleasure” said in that accent.

Then there’s Clooney and his current squeeze, Stacy Keibler. Sorry George, you know I love you and want only the best for you, but if this is real I’ll eat my keyboard.  Proving once again that he’s a class act, Clooney told the audience as he accepted the final award of the night, "You don't have to do this for us. We really do love what we do. … We really do understand that we're very blessed and we're very lucky to be doing this."

He mentioned the humanitarian work of some of the actors in attendance (umm…he got most of them involved) and also thanked studios. "The truth is — and we don't really want to tell all those guys — we'd do this for free.”

By the way, Clooney told The Wrap that he’s already started “his next project, writing, directing and starring in a big-budget movie about the men who chased down the stolen art of Europe during World War Two.” Excellent!

Something unique about this event:  it’s not just another opportunity for stars to dress up and give each other awards. It also helped raise $1.6 million for educational programs in the Palm Springs area. That being said, the Palm Springs Film Festival Awards Gala, which comes after all of the various guild and association awards have been given out,  kicks off the glamorous portion of Awards season. Expect to see all of these people next week at the Golden Globes and then again in February come Oscar night.

photos: FayesVision/WENN

Ever notice how with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt they are either practically dry-humping each other on the red carpet or looking like they can barely tolerate one another? Yesterday's premiere of 'In The Land of Blood and Honey' took place at the School of Visual Arts in New York City had the man are we stoned toned-down version of Brangelina. Could be because his parents were there.

Brad's father looks thrilled to be there, doesn't he? Despite the rumors that Brad's parents don't care for Angelina they showed their support to her and Brad by being at the premiere of Angelina's directorial debut. 

Do you like Angelina's dress? I have to say Brad's mom is quite a lovely looking lady!

Stay connected with us! Follow us on Twitter, fan us on Facebook or subscribe to our RSS feed. We would love to hear from you.

Photos: Ivan Nikolov/PNP/WENN