BARON COHEN TOO FAMOUS FOR CHARACTERS' GOOD "Sacha Baron Cohen went undercover as his alter ego Bruno on Sunday by crashing a rally in support of a ballot measure that would ban gay marriage in California. … Cohen, in disguise in a blond wig and preppy outfit, marched with demonstrators who support Proposition 8 while being trailed by cameras in a rally across from City Hall. When photographers and reporters realized who he was and tried to approach the star, members of his film crew tried to shield him, and he was eventually whisked away in a van."
ANOTHER ANOTHER 'PLANET OF THE APES' IN THE WORKS "…right now, in the halls of Fox, there is another new version of Planet of the Apes that has been kicking around for the last year. It's not a sequel to the Burton film, and it's not another remake of the original. To the general audience it's a prequel to Planet of the Apes, but for the initiated it's something totally different. It's a remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Yup. It's the story of Caesar, the ape who said no, the first ape with speech who started the events that led to a world where monkeys were on top and humans were dumb beasts."
Alright, time to get ghoulish and prepare to get scarily smashed on blood punch or whatever swill they're serving at the cramped Halloween party you're going to tonight. If the clip above isn't enough to put you in the mood to terrify children (or your spouse or your grandmother), click through to get some more inspiration from a few of our favorite scenes of horror from pop culture history.
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Though sometimes it seemed like it would last forever, everything has an expiration date. You had to know George Clooney's stint as the go-to, dark, handsome, middle-aged leading man would eventually take a tumble, and now it has. Sorry, Georgy, there's a new heartthrob in town.
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MARK YOUR CALENDARS "Jessica Simpson's Major Movie Star may have opened No. 1 in Russia earlier this month — but it's not having as much success stateside. The flick will be renamed Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous, and released only on DVD in America, a source confirms to Usmagazine.com. The movie — about a ditzy movie star who enlists in the army to earn money to pay her bills — is slated to hit stores Feb. 3."
Yet another remake this way comes. And this time we're more skeptical than ever before, because the film that's getting the makeover is one quite dear to our inner child.
It's another heavy role for Samuel L. Jackson.
Having most recently played a dirty cop in "Lakeview Terrace," Jackson is set to star as a bad guy again in Columbia Pictures' remake of Berry Gordy's 1985 cult classic "The Last Dragon."
Jackson will play Sho'nuff, the Shogun of Harlem, a role played in the original by the late Julius Carry, whose spiel included asking ego-driven questions like "Am I the baddest mofo lowdown around this town?" Each time his gang of thugs answered, "Sho 'nuff!"
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The updated plot will be along the same lines of the original, centering on young martial arts student Leroy Green in his quest through the streets of New York to achieve the highest level of martial arts accomplishment, known as the Last Dragon. Those who achieve the high ranking possess the Glow, making them the greatest fighter alive.
If the plot, as described by a nerdy Yahoo news writer, sounds to you like it's absolutely awful and juvenile, that's because it is. But, like the 80s in general, it's awful and juvenile in the best way possible.
After the jump, a roundup of a few great scenes from the original Dragon.
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MOVIE PIRATE SENTENCED TO PRISON "A Maryland man was sentenced Tuesday to 21 months behind bars for using a camcorder to pirate movies at a theater. Michael Dwayne Logan pleaded guilty in July to two felony counts of filming 28 Weeks Later and Enchanted in a District of Columbia theater last year. Logan was sentenced … under the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, Title 18, United States Code, Section 2319B. The 2005 law makes it a federal felony to record movies at the theater without the copyright owners' consent. Scofflaws face a maximum three-year prison term and $250,000 fine."
RISE OF THE MACHINES TO KILL H'WOOD FOR GOOD? "'While Hollywood films have traditionally fared well during economic downturns, this time around may be quite different,' said Bobby Tulsiani, an analyst at Forrester Research, which recently examined consumer spending on media. Blame the Internet. With faster processors, improved technology to compress video and more than 60 million homes in the U.S. with high-speed connections, the computer seamlessly delivers full-length episodes of television shows and movies. As a result, the computer now vies with the TV and cinema as the go-to screen for entertainment."
Joaquin Phoenix, whom we can no longer look at without thinking of Johnny Cash, used a Paul Newman benefit to announce his retirement from acting. As you do.
I want to take this opportunity … to give you the exclusive and just talk a little bit about the fact that this will be my last performance as an actor. I'm not doing films anymore. … I'm working on my music. I'm done. I've been through that.
We have a feeling this "retirement" is going to stick the same way it did for Brett Favre and Michael Jordan.
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Remember when Jessica Simpson was working on that terrible film, Major Movie Star? We all predicted it would go straight to DVD, but it turned out even better: The movie never opened here in the US and has yet to be released to Blockbuster. Score!
Fortunately for Jess, this film wasn't a total waste: It opened to the top box office spot in Russia earlier this month. As if life couldn't get any better, it's been announced that in November the movie will open in Bulgaria. That's about it for the little movie that couldn't: No plans are in the works to open the film in any countries that speak English, which proves our theory that Jessica Simpson should probably just stop talking.
The Hollywood Film Festival awards gala was held last night in Beverly Hills, and we would have admittedly given our right arm to be there. Look at all those pretty men! There's Christian Bale, obviously, and Ryan Gosling, James Franco and Josh Brolin — and two newbies to keep your eyes on, Robert Pattinson (who will be starring in the upcoming Twilight film) and Chris Pine (who will play Captain Kirk in the Star Trek movie). We don't even care that Angelina Jolie made a surprise appearance to pay tribute to Clint Eastwood — there's too much pretty elsewhere.
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WILL BOND PROVE RECESSION-PROOF? "The new James Bond film 'Quantum of Solace' may prove critic-and recession-proof … when it hits British cinemas this week and U.S. theatres on November 14, box office trackers predict. The second Bond movie with Daniel Craig as the suave secret agent is expected to build on the success of 2006's 'Casino Royale,' despite economic pressures on movie-goers and agreement among critics that the earlier film was comfortably the better. … Experts said financial turmoil and plunging values of stocks and property would have only a limited impact on ticket sales."
JONAS BROS JUMP THE GASSY DOG "Another hot Disney Channel act is poised to make a bigscreen splash — at 20th Century Fox. Fox has locked the Jonas Brothers to make their feature starring debut in 'Walter the Farting Dog.' Based on a bestselling series of books by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray, the film is being adapted by Alec Sokolow and Joel Cohen into a family film that will revolve around Nick, Joe and Kevin Jonas, as well as their younger brother Frankie. … The title character in the 'Walter' books is a fat dog with severe flatulence. The brothers play musicians whose parents are asked to care for the dog by an aunt just before she passes away."
Whoops! Disney's Touchstone Pictures picked the wrong time to come out with Confessions of a Shopaholic. Now that everyone's broke and scared, ad folks believe it's going to be mighty tough to convince consumers to plop down $10 to watch a movie about a beautiful, young, white lady who likes to buy things, which, unfortunately, was once considered a winning storyline.
RELIGIOUS RIGHT STILL VERY HYPOCRITICAL "Harvey Weinstein won't be seeing his favorite 'porno' in Salt Lake City. Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller's Megaplex Theatres refused to book the Weinstein Company's new R-rated comedy 'Zack and Miri Make a Porno,' starring Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks, saying it's too raunchy for religious, conservative audiences. 'We feel it's very close to an NC-17 with its graphic nudity and graphic sex,' the chain's Cal Gunderson told us. Asked why Megaplex has no problem showing the R-rated, ultra-violent 'Saw V,' which shows a man forced to crush his own hands to escape a pendulum cutting him in half, Gunderson said: 'No comment.'"
There are two sides to all celebrities: The squeaky-clean images forced upon the public by PR reps and their actual personalities. To provide you with a glimpse into the real Hollywood characters are Mollygood’s very own readers, telling tales of celebrity encounters big and small. Up this week: Cerebratious' run-ins with Leelee Sobieski. CONTINUED »
GUY RITCHIE IN TEARS OVER T-SHIRT "Guy Ritchie is 'in pieces' after seeing a photo of his son Rocco in a T-shirt supporting Alex Rodriguez's New York Yankees baseball team, a source tells Usmagazine.com. The 8-year-old was photographed sporting the shirt Monday in New York City. 'He's actually been crying over it,' says the source on the set of Ritchie's upcoming drama Sherlock Holmes."
Anne Pressley, a Little Rock, Arkansas TV reporter who recently had a small part as Ann Coulter in Oliver Stone's mocking film W, was found in her home brutally beaten and stabbed yesterday. She's now in critical condition in an Arkansas hospital.
Coulter continues to run free, certainly guilty of this and many other heinous crimes.
The world is not fair.
Editor
