by Robert Nolin, Sun Sentinel
"Magic City," a Starz cable TV production about sex, crime and intrigue in a 1950s Miami casino, is seeking extras for background roles in the series' second season.
Among characters sought: a "very attractive" Asian prostitute willing to appear fully nude, real doctors and nurses, and "stunning females" to act as Hispanic elevator girls in "tight or revealing clothing."
Extras are guaranteed $108 a day whether they work or not. "They're not going to get rich, but it might be something fun for them to do," said Bill Marinella, whose company is handling the casting call.
"It's really a unique experience," he said. "We feed you a fantastic lunch."
Other roles include:
Real waitresses and bartenders, age 18 to 30, any ethnicity.
Experienced period-car drivers, familiar with on-the-column gearshift levers and double clutching.
Hotel guests, men and women 18 to 65, any ethnicity.
Current and former police officers, men, 18 to 55, Caucasian.
Attractive natural women, "curvy but not overweight," age 18 to 40. "We are keeping an eye out for beautiful, NATURAL women for various roles," Marinella wrote in the casting call.
The emphasis on a natural look stems from the difficulty Marinella had in finding local actresses who hadn't had breast augmentation, common in South Florida today but rare in the '50s. "I've actually had better luck finding synchronized swimming groups than I did finding real boobs," he said last spring.
The show will be filming in Miami through the end of the year.
Dominik García-Lorido : GQ Spain [September]2012
* we can only pray to the gods of nudity that we'll get to see Dominik melons in the upcoming season. It's again up to persuasion powers of Mitch and his wife Kelly to make it happen and I have full confidence in them to succeed.
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Ben Affleck's 'To The Wonder' Role Significantly Reduced?
Ben Affleck is poised to have a big fall. The formerly maligned actor stars and directs the drama "Argo" and plays a lead role in Terrence Malick's "To the Wonder," a romantic drama premiering at the Venice Film Festival. Or maybe he doesn't.Intrepid blogger Jeffrey Wells -- who is at the Telluride Film Festival this week, where Affleck is in attendance to support "Argo" -- tweeted on Friday that the actor's "Wonder" part has been significantly cut. "I'm told he's barely in [it]," Wells wrote.
@wellshwood Hollywood Elsewhere
Affleck didn't say this, but I'm told he's barely in "To The Wonder" a la Adrien Brody in "Thin Red Line" and Sean Penn in "Tree of Life"
* So the odds are pretty good the nudity will either come from McAdams or Olga.
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Korine revamps teen dream
by Anthony Kaufman
Has Harmony Korine, the enfant terrible who wrote "Kids," and directed "Julian Donkey-Boy" and "Gummo," grown up?
With his latest film, "Spring Breakers" -- premiering in Venice on Sept. 5 -- the provocative filmmaker has tackled his most ambitious and possibly most commercial project to date: A girls-gone-wild Florida-s et adventure, starring James Franco and former Disney Channel stalwarts Selena Gomez ("Wizards of Waverly Place"), Vanessa Hudgens ("High School Musical") and ABC Family vet Ashley Benson ("Pretty Little Liars").
"Technically, it was the hardest thing I've ever done," says the filmmaker, now 39. "We had 12 cameras break; cranes collapsing; boats sinking; at some points, there would be more paparazzi than crew members; you'd have news helicopters entering the shot; 1,000 screaming teenagers with signs trying to destroy the campers -- every day felt like some mild form of warfare."
Korine, who shot on 35mm film, added that he wanted huge production values. "I wanted things to look and feel incredible. It would have been much easier if I didn't have ambition."
The last time Korine was on the festival circuit, in 2009, he was promoting a far different project. Called "Trash Humpers," the 78-minute experimental movie, shot entirely on a VHS camcorder, chronicled the creepy escapades of a family of masked maniacs engaged in objectionable, lewd or just plain weird behavior, including yes, humping garbage. "It was a provocation," Korine admits.
But with "Spring Breakers," it wasn't just about creating something "shocking or seductive," as he says, referring to the original image that sparked the idea of teenage girls in bikinis, wearing ski masks and carrying guns. "This film is different from anything I've done," he explains. "It's the narrative: It's very liquid and boozy, and freed up. It's more like a pop poem."
Another big difference is the cast, of course. With Disney Channel icon Gomez in one of the key roles, along with "High School Musical's" Hudgens, the film is drawing far more attention than Korine's previous work, increasing the stakes for the filmmaker.
For Gomez, the more risque project also presents a potential hazard.
"Obviously, I have a younger generation (of fans), and I really appreciate that," says the 22-year-old actress, who got her start on "Barney and Friends." "I want to respect that and I still want to do things that will earn me that respect. But I also want to do things that challenge me and put me out of my element."
Korine had always wanted Gomez and the other young female stars for the movie. "I liked the idea of having these girls in the film specifically," he says. "They are of this pop culture, and that added a whole new element that was exciting for me."
Entrusting Korine, a director known for his glue-sniffing, date-raping outcasts, with America's next top starlets on an indie budget, might appear like a risky move. But the director says, surprisingly, he was fully encouraged by his team, including CAA, which packaged the project.
"There was no lack of confidence (in Korine)," says Muse Films' Chris Hanley, who has known the director since the mid-'90s, and had been talking to him for two years about exploring, he says, "a more pop, and therefore commercial" side of his aesthetic.
"Even as the intention was to make a pop commercial bikini movie," continues Hanley, "it has its intelligent side, (which) shows there is an underworld to every seemingly perfect and happy setting. So while it is commercial, it makes you think a lot too -- this is something Harmony does very well."
According to Hanley, the investors were kindred spirits, including former members of the Andy Warhol Factory ("Baby" Jane Holzer) as well as Stella Schnabel, daughter of artist Julian Schnabel, and designer Agnes B., who backed Korine's 2007 feature "Mister Lonely."
Korine, himself, is upbeat about the results.
"I can't wait for people to see it," he says. "As a filmmaker, I did things I've never done before that I've always wanted to do, that I couldn't have done five years ago or 10 years ago. I just didn't understand moviemaking in this way. This one feels special."
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Oliver Stone’s ‘Savages’ Debuts Unrated Version on DVD, Blu-Ray
Ferocious Thriller Now in Uncut Version Not Shown in Theaters
By TheImproper
Blake Lively’s turn as an addled, uninhibited hippie chick in Oliver Stone’s blood and guts movie about the Mexican drug trade is being released on DVD and Blu-ray in an unrated version that was too hot to be shown in theaters.
The crime thriller “Savages,” Stone’s take on the drug war, is comparable to his other compelling looks at war and Wall Street scandal, “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Platoon,” and “Wall Street.”
The film unfolds as a couple of laid-back California pot growers Ben (Aaron Johnson) and closest friend Chon (Taylor Kitsch), a former Navy SEAL and ex-mercenary, bump into a Mexican drug cartel led by Elena (Salma Hayek) and enforcer Lado (Benicio Del Toro).Blu-ray and DVD Bonus FeaturesFeatured Commentary: Oliver Stone, producers Moritz Borman, Eric Kopeloff, Co-Screenwriter/Novelist Don Winslow, Executive Producer/Co-Screenwriter Shane Salerno and Production Designer Tomas Voth
Blu-ray ExclusivesStone Cold Savages Documentary: A five-part profile of cast, crew and Oliver Stone, an unprecedented access to a master storyteller’s creative process.
Deleted Scenes:
UltraViolet Capable: Instantly stream or download to tablets, smartphones, computers and TVs.
Digital Copy: Viewers can redeem a digital version of the full-length movie from their choice of retail partners.
Pocket BLU App: For smartphones with newly updated versions for iPad®, Android™ tablets, PC and Mac computers.
Advanced Remote Control: Users can navigate through menus, playback and BD-Live™ functions with ease.
Video Timeline: Instantly access any point in the film.
Mobile-To-Go: Users can unlock a selection of bonus content and save to their device or to stream from anywhere there is a Wi-Fi network.
When the duo rebuffs an offer they can’t refuse to join the cartel, all hell breaks loose. Lively’s character is kidnapped and the two pot dealers must enlist the help of a dirty DEA agent (John Travolta) to fight off the drug gang.
The theatrical version was intense and graphic enough. But the DVD is promising even more graphic action.
The Combo Pack includes exclusive deleted scenes and a behind-the-scenes featurette with the entire cast.
The Combo Pack also includes a digital copy of the film compatible with most major phone and tablet computers, as well as UltraViolet, according to Universal Studios.
The combo pack and disc sets go on sale November 13, 2012. Pre-order through TheImproper at amazon.com and save 31 percent off the price of the Two-Disc Combo Pack: Blu-ray + DVD + Digital Copy + UltraViolet. It normally retails for $34.98, but by pre-ordering you pay $23.99, for a savings of $10.99.
* it's sad Miss Lively is firmly against outright nudity (for now). She is so gorgeous. Eminently watchable. Folks tend to make fun of the way she talks but even that is a strange attraction....somehow works in her favor.
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Real life a bit of a rom-com too
The Michigan-born blonde and her fiance Dax Shepard have broken the curse in their new film, Hit and Run, and Bell couldn't be happier.
"I feel like I'm in a great place," she beams.
Bell, is starring in the TV series House of Lies (expected to screen here on Ten this year) and Hit and Run took a modest $5.9 million at the US box office in its opening weekend - almost three times its $2 million budget. Her breakout role in TV's Veronica Mars in 2004 led to movie roles in the romantic comedies Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Couples Retreat, and When in Rome.
And she was confident she and Shepard would sizzle on the big screen.
"Well, Dax isn't a rule kind of guy," she tells Insider. "And neither of us wakes up in the morning saying, 'What would the public want from us?' Obviously, I hope people will want to see it but that factor didn't go into the decision.
"We wanted to work together; that was that. He's my favourite human being on the planet and making this movie was the best six weeks of my life."
Art imitates life in the case of their on-screen romance, written by Shepard.
"It's about the idea of whether your past should inform your future," Bell explains. "It relates to the first moment I met Dax. He was my Prince Charming but then I heard that he had a more exciting past than he initially let on to me.
"So immediately I got nervous and felt threatened. Subconsciously, I punished him for things he did before he met me, which is really not OK to do in a relationship."
Bell, 32, is referring to Shepard's reported alcohol and cocaine addiction. He is now eight years sober.
"I had to recognise that I was being judgmental," she says. "It was something we explored, dealt with, and thankfully got over."
Shepard, 37, also born in Michigan, burst on to the Hollywood circuit on
the Ashton Kutcher prank show Punk'd.
He then parlayed his appearances into an acting career, landing a role on the TV show Parenthood.
"I don't think people should be shamed by their past," Shepard says. "They don't owe an apology to their current partner for things they did before they knew them. People are fallible. They make mistakes and move on."
Bell is petite, bubbly and effortlessly charming. This afternoon she is styled in a slim-fitting Etro dress and Barbara Bui heels. Her hair is long and perfectly groomed.
"When it comes to fashion, I didn't really know what I liked until about six or seven years ago, but I definitely gravitate towards classic styles," she says. "I also recognise that my fashion sense is ever evolving."
Hit and Run packs a punch with some off-the-wall dialogue, stunt driving (using many of Shepard's own cars), an unrecognisable Bradley Cooper in a role that rids him of any physical appeal, and for some shock value, naked old people are thrown into the mix. "Dax's humour is very politically incorrect and that's very much who Dax is," Bell says.
Clearly, they are besotted with each other. "We like hiking together, having friends over to dinner, and we love to watch TV together, especially reality shows. That's our guilty pleasure," she says.
Ready for a change of pace, Bell is shooting controversial film, The Lifeguard, about a 30-year-old woman who begins a relationship with a troubled 16-year-old.
"It's very, very honest and very, very raw," she says.
Hit and Run opens Thursday
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Movie Review: Compliance
True story of dangerously blind obedience
by C.W. Ellis
Would you do something that you feel is wrong if someone in authority told you to do it? How far would you go if that person said it was okay? Would you say no, or obey? Don’t most people accept, and even like being told what to do? Compliance is a small film that asks these big questions. The answers, like the film itself, will make you uncomfortable.
The story is straightforward. It’s a busy Friday night at a suburban fast-food outlet. Sandra (Ann Dowd), the restaurant’s stressed 50-something manager, receives a phone call from a man who identifies himself as Police Officer Daniels (Pat Healy).
He says that his surveillance team witnessed Becky (Dreama Walker), a pretty blonde teenaged restaurant employee, stealing money from a customer’s purse. He tells Sandra that he needs her help in securing evidence from Becky until his men can arrive at the scene.
“Officer Daniels” (who the audience will learn is not really a cop) then proceeds to give Sandra detailed instructions. His requests—orders, really—escalate step by step, from questioning Becky to a humiliating strip search culminating in sexual assault. Becky, Sandra, and Sandra’s fiancé willingly comply.
Before you say that nothing like this would ever really happen, in April 2004 a prank caller identifying himself as a police officer played out this exact scenario with employees of a McDonald’s outside Louisville, Ky. And that wasn’t the only instance. Over a period of 10 years, 70 similar phone calls have occurred across the country, according to the film’s press notes.
Filmmaker Craig Zobel and the cast succeed in bringing gut-wrenching reality to what seems intellectually unbelievable.
How can normal, decent people become complicit in committing astonishingly outrageous acts? For Sandra, it’s a sense of duty to please those above her and command those below. For Becky, it’s desperate hope for a way out. It leads them both to do as they are told.
The film opens with close-ups of the fast-food workplace stations, the greasy reality where the players spend so many of their waking hours. When Sandra enlists in a police investigation—something big, something important—we feel the excitement of escape from a life of quiet desperation. Later, Sandra pulls her pleasant but somewhat befuddled fiancé in, to disastrous effect.
“Officer” Daniels is a master manipulator. Listen closely and you hear the lexicon of control—the appeals to authority, the scolding followed by reassurances, the “I need you to do this” commands masked as requests—all with the effect of keeping the victims confused and compliant.
The Milgram and Zimbardo social psychology experiments famously demonstrated how easy it is to get an average person to degrade, even torture, fellow human beings. Most of us fancy ourselves better and smarter than that. We question authority rather than obey it. We’ll never be in the docket at Nuremberg for “just following orders,” we tell ourselves.
But spend just a few minutes in quiet meditation and you’ll hear a critical voice inside speaking to your fears and desires. It expects you to accept, not question, the reality of its narrative—it’s the authority, after all—and to react accordingly. Officer Daniels is on duty.
Hollywood blockbusters scare us with special effects, aliens, and explosions. Compliance shows us the monsters within ourselves. That is truly frightening.
Rating:
4 stars / 5 ____________________________________________________
Jena Sims talking about working with Roger Corman in the film “Attack of the 50ft Cheerleader”
Jena Sims plays Cassi Stratford in the upcoming Roger Corman film “Attack of the 50ft Cheerleader”. Media Mikes had the chance to talk with Jena about the role and what it was like working with Roger.
Adam Lawton: How did you first get connected with Roger Corman?
Jena Sims: I auditioned for the film just like any other audition. I really had no idea and was just treating this like another audition. The call was held in Roger’s office however he was not there at the time. I met with the director and casting associate and almost immediately booked the job. They asked me if I had any cheerleading experience which I had as I did cheerleading throughout school. I didn’t get to meet Roger until about half way through filming. He has a brief cameo in one of the scenes. Roger was very sweet and quiet. He was just so nice. I was and still am very glad to be a part of one of his movies.
AL: Can you give us some background on the film?
JS: The film is a younger version of the classic film “Attack of the 50ft Woman”. The story starts out with my character Cassi being the “ugly duckling”. She desperately wants to be a cheerleader and part of a sorority but because of her looks she can’t. One day while messing around in the science lab with her friend Cassi is injected with a serum that makes her beautiful but at the same time makes her grow.
AL: What drew you to the project?JS: I grew up watching the “Bring It On” films. Those movies actually made me want to be a cheerleader. I loved that this film had a cheerleading element to it but also that it was a Roger Corman film. Roger has worked with so many great people and I wanted to be a part of that roster.
AL: How did working on this film compare to some of your previous work?
JS: It was like night and day. Being an independent film with a lower budget I think allowed everyone working on the film more creative freedom. Things were so much more relaxed and we all could contribute ideas for lines and or scenes. We all had a tremendous amount of input. I picked out and wore a number of my own clothes in the film. A lot of films the procedure is very tight and things are done in a certain way. Working on this Corman film was like going to summer camp. It really was just so much fun.
AL: Can you tell us about your involvement with HBBQ?
JS: HBBQ is a non-profit organization that I started. The letters actually stand for “Has Been Beauty Queen”. I started the organization in 2006 as a pageant for kids with terminal cancer called “Pageant of Hope”. I competed in pageants as a kid and was Miss Georgia Teen 2008. I lost my Grandfather when I was younger to cancer so I was always very interested in fund raising for places like the American Cancer Society. When kids come in to be a part of the pageant we teach the pageant walk and do their hair and makeup. We really try to get to know the kids and help bring them out of their shells. At the end of the day we have the pageant and everyone is a winner. With these pageants we try and help take the kids minds of being sick and in the hospital. I have been able to travel all around the world putting on these pageants and it’s been great.
AL: What other projects do you have coming up?
JS: I just shot a found footage film the other day which has still yet to be titled. It was a really fun and cute roll. I have auditioning quite a bit as all the fall shows are beginning production. I also will be doing a pageant for my organization in my home town in September so I am really looking forward to that. It’s been a long time since I have held one of these in my home town.
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RAAZ 3: No Body Double For Esha Gupta’s Nude Scene
MUMBAI: Barely 2 films old, newcomer Esha Gupta, who recently shot for a nude scene in her forthcoming 3D horror film Raaz 3, did so minus a body double and without any inhibitions. Reveals a source, “The near-to-nude scenes were crucial to the script of the film. And while Esha was offered a body double, she insisted on doing the scenes herself. She had no qualms shooting for the scenes since she comes from an extensive modeling background. She completely trusted the team’s judgment and shot for the bold scenes like a thorough professional.”
Apparently Esha refused to go for a body double for this scene in Raaz 3. All praise for the actress, says director Vikram Bhatt, “The scenes Esha has done is with utmost grace. She has shot for them beautifully.”
The first–of-its-kind 3D horror film, starring Emraan Hashmi, Bipasha Basu and Esha Gupta follows the journey of a fading superstar’s revenge against a rising star.
Presented by Fox Star Studios and produced by Vishesh Films, Vikram Bhatt’s Raaz 3 comes releases on 7th September,2012.
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James Toback Strikes Again: I Have to Cum at Least Seven Times a Day
Rich Juzwiak About three weeks ago, I was on the 6 train and I realized I needed to get some iPhone headphones. I tried the Apple store in Grand Central. They didn't have any, but they directed me to the Best Buy at 44th and 5th. As I was turning the corner to enter the store, this man stopped me. He was heavyset, sweaty and wearing glasses but I could see that his skin was all scaly under his eyes.
"My name is James Toback," he started. "I saw you and I had to turn around. I've been following you for 20 yards."
He started running down his resume and listing all these celebrities he had "discovered," like Adrian Grenier (whom he worked with in Harvard Man).
"You need to be in my next movie," he told me.
I was completely caught off guard. I asked for his business card.
"Real directors don't carry business cards," he told me, but then he said to Google him if I needed to identify him. I did that right there and saw his IMDb page with his picture on it.
"Look, I know this is weird, would you come with me to the Harvard Club? It's across the street and there will be people there. You will be safe. It'll just take 10 minutes of your time."
I wasn't really doing anything that afternoon, so I went with him. I'd never been in that part of Midtown, but there's also the Yale Club and the Cornell Club on that street. I didn't go to an Ivy League, so I was thinking that I'd never get the chance to go to any of those weird clubs. Walking into the Harvard Club was a strange twist to my day.
Everyone there knew him. I found out later that he's a Harvard alumni. We sat down and I ordered a Coke. He ordered the same. He started rattling off about his life. He went into this longwinded story about being on a bunch of sports teams at Harvard. He told me he had wanted to take the highest amount of LSD ever recorded. I can't remember what the dosage he was basing this off of was, but he wanted to take more than that. So he did and he had an eight-day trip where he fucked all these woman. He felt like he was God. He had this experience where he was walking beside the river in Boston, and this was on the eighth day of his trip. He ran into this guy who had been missing, this football player, and he saw that this guy was God instead. It was really weird.
"My movie Harvard Man with Adrian Grenier was based on that," he told me. This first reference to sex led to him discussing the fact that he doesn't follow any organized religion, but he follows the Church of Orgasm. He told me that he has to cum at least seven or eight times a day, whether it's with a woman or by himself. He explained that before you cum, you can say, "I'm going to cum," and after you've come, you can say, "I have cum," but while you're cumming, "There are no words. You're in a different state." I thought it was so gross to think of him cumming seven times a day.
(The Church of Orgasm is figurative, by the way. There's not an actual church.)
He told me his goal when he was younger was to impregnate someone in every country. He told me that he had fathered dozens of kids he did not know, that he would go around and fuck women and impregnate them. He has a son that he does know, though, with his wife. I guess that's a completely separate part of his life. Later, he told me about this woman he had fallen in love with. He didn't put her in a movie like he said he would and she became very vengeful and tried to contact his wife. He got very serious.
"I told her, ‘If you want to do anything in this industry, I will ruin you. If you contact my wife, I will make your life very hard.'" I guess it stopped. I'm not sure what his arrangement is with his wife, but it didn't sound like she knew the details of what goes on in the Church of Orgasm.
He started on the movie that he wants to film. He told me I had this great aura and asked me what I did. I told him I worked in fashion.
"Yes. I could tell. Just the way you carry yourself," he said. I looked like shit that day. I'd been running all over the city. It was such bullshit.
He asked me if I wanted to work in costume design. I told him I worked as a wardrobe stylist.
"I can tell," he told me. "How does this sound to you so far?"
"It sounds really sketchy," I replied.
"Why don't you trust me?"
"Because I think you're just trying to fuck me."
"I would never have sex with a woman that wasn't begging me to have sex with her," he told me. "She would have to be begging and even then I might not do it."
Over the next two hours, he repeatedly asked me, "How does this sound to you?" I told him I was skeptical. He kept saying that I'd have to beg him to have sex. I felt really nervous. He went to Harvard. Obviously, the guy is smart. I told him that I felt like he was trying to manipulate me. I didn't drink any alcohol and sipped on that one Coke that I ordered the whole time.
He talked about himself the whole time, asking me questions once in a while and then going off on another tangent. It was fascinating. These were the craziest stories. He told me he was married to some royal figure when he was really young. I got the feeling that he came from a well-to-do family. He told me when he was 14, he would go to the Dakota and there were all of these classical music guys that were super famous staying there. I don't know classical music well, so I recognized the names but I don't recall them. He said he would fuck these crazy famous classical music composers.
"I'm not gay, and I would never let anyone fuck me, but I would fuck them, and they loved me because I was so beautiful," he explained. For the most part, I believed him. Researching him afterwards, I got the sense that his background lines up with his story.
He told me about living in Los Angeles and there was a boxer or football player who had this crew that he would hang out in. He was the only white guy. They would have crazy orgies with everyone fucking everyone.
Almost all of his stories were about sex or tied back to it.
He asked me if I have a type.
"Generally, tall, skinny white guys," I told him.
"OK, now that is just a construct in your head so that you shut out other options that might be a little more challenging to you," he said. I asked what he meant. "I think you can be attracted to things that disgust you," he continued.
OK.
"That's actually what the movie is going to be about," he said. I asked him about the process. He told me he develops a very personal relationship with his actors. He told me he'd write this role for me and that way I wouldn't be acting at all. I'd just have to be myself.
"First, you need to watch all my movies," he said. "When would you be able to do that? I want to get started right away."
"This weekend?" I said. I was still intrigued at this point, and I at least wanted to hear him out.
"Can you meet me at the Angelika tomorrow at 7:25? I'm meeting Alec Baldwin there at 7:30. If you can meet me, I can give you the DVDs, but they're my only copies so you have to give them back," he said. He asked my schedule for the following week. I told him I was free Tuesday and Wednesday.
"OK," he said. "We'll meet Tuesday evening. We can have dinner here and then we'll go upstairs and start to do this type of psychoanalysis."
"What's upstairs?"
"Oh, it's a hotel."
OK.
"How does this psychoanalysis work?" I asked.
"I really need to get to know you so I'll write the character around you so that it fits you like a dress. I'll shoot out a word and then I want you to rap on it. We'll go from there. It's sort of a stream-of-consciousness way of me getting into your psyche and getting to know you."
OK.
"The room will be registered in my name," he continued. "There will be tons of people downstairs. You'll be safe. It won't be sketchy."
Yeah, not sketchy at all to go to a hotel room with a guy I don't know. That's when I accepted the fact that this whole thing was totally weird and he's completely crazy.
I told him I needed to think about it. He implored me to consider it.
"We'll be making art!" he said. "This is what you're meant to do. Isn't it weird that I saw you on the street and now you're here? You need to be making art. You aren't meant to be working in a store or as a stylist. There is something more that you're destined for. I feel it."
Looking at his prior films, I think he was lying. He worked with established actors and he had no idea whether I can act or not and I can't! I'd be terrible.
I told him I'd watch his films and gave him my card. When we parted, I was reeling and shocked by this experience. I ended up walking home from Midtown to Bushwick. It took two and a half hours. I was that weirded out by the whole experience.
I did not meet him the next day. He called me three times around the time we were supposed to meet. He waited there for an hour, but by then I knew this was too weird and I was going to stop engaging him.
After I was home, I thought back to something he told me: "I'm catching a lot of flack because people think I'm walking around Manhattan with my dick in my hands following every girl I see. And I stop guys sometimes, too." He rolled up his hands and stacked them at his crotch, like he was holding a light saber that was also his dick. It struck me as such a crude gesture. I had no concept of the extent of what he was talking about. He told me to Google him and see what comes up. The first three results are his IMDb, his Wikipedia and an article about his new movie that just premiered.
I didn't look past that until I got home. The fourth result is the Gawker article from 2010, Sleazy Film Director James Toback's Underage Pick-up Attempt. When I read that in the safety of my apartment, suddenly the whole interaction all made sense.
Here are the voice mails he left me from outside of the Angelika:
Toback voicemail 1
Toback voicemail 2
Toback voicemail 3
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Fifty Shades of Grey Movie : Is a TV Series a Better Idea?
by Aida Ekberg
The Fifty Shades of Grey movie hasn't come out yet, but some fans are already upset about it.There's been an intense online battle going on over who should play Anastasia Steele and Christian Grey, with fans fighting for favorites like Matt Bomer, Ian Somerhalder, and Ryan Gosling. Ana options include Alexis Bledel, Alexandra Daddario, and Emilia Clarke.
However, Fifty fans must be tired of the casting de
bate, because now some of them have taken to arguing that the movie shouldn't exist at all - they'd rather see 50 Shades on TV.According to Books and Review, fans have been posting messages like this on the Fifty Shades Film website:
"As great as it is to have a movie in the works, I would of loved to have a HBO series. That way we could enjoy it longer, and the story could be told. Anyone else think this? Will a movie be able to do it justice?"
HBO and Showtime are known for airing sexy TV series that feature a lot of sex and skin - Game of Thrones, True Blood, and Californication are proof that a 50 Shades of Grey TV series could work. And what gal wouldn't want to get to see Christian Grey every week?However, the movie is already in the works, and there's no way that the producers are going to abandon their cash cow now.
But this doesn't mean that a 50 Shades TV series can't exist in the future - if the movie is a big box office success, the producers will probably be looking for more ways to profit off of the 50 Shades property.
Reboots and remakes are all the rage these days, so audiences are getting used to seeing multiple actors and actresses play beloved characters. There's even been talk about a Twilight TV series.
Producers might feel pressured to pick a big-name movie actor like Ryan Gosling for the film, so fans unhappy with such a choice would enjoy getting to see someone like Ian Somerhalder or Matt Bomer play the character on TV. By the time the TV series came out, their current shows The Vampire Diaries and White Collar probably wouldn't exist anymore.
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‘Dirty dancing’ at the Republican National Convention
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VENICE : ‘The Master’ And Joaquin Phoenix Draw Raves, But Pic Is Hard Nut To Crack For Some; Trailer Scenes Missing
A Venice audience lined up starting at about 8am today to catch the first press screening of Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master. The packed house was hushed throughout the entirety of the film with only a handful of walkouts. Although immediate rection following the screening was enormously positive, applause when the credits rolled was muted. After sitting through 2 hours of a gorgeous, yet emotionally grueling and difficult to decipher picture, folks say they’re still parsing the movie.As one industryite and, self-professed fan of Anderson’s work, said to me this morning, “I would have preferred if it moved from point A to point B, not because I’m illiterate about film or need signposts along the way, but it seems to keep circling around.” An across the board consensus, however, is that Joaquin Phoenix is a lock for a best actor Oscar nomination and, barring any other exceptionally standout performances this year, a win. His portrayal of a disturbed World War II veteran Navy man is disturbing itself for the masterful way he embodies such an enigmatic character.
Anderson is known for operatic tales, whether set against the backdrop of the porn industry, the San Fernando Valley during a frog storm or the Southern California oil boom. But this one will be a tougher sell to audiences not used to the director’s work. The movie has been regarded as a thinly-veiled treatise on Scientology and someone who’s not heard all of the Scientology talk before seeing the film would immediately recognize references to it. Still, one person this morning told me they felt Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd, aka The Master, resembled a snake-oil salesman more than L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology. Curiously, a scene that was part of one of the original trailers for The Master in which Phoenix’s Freddie Quell screams at Dodd, “I know you’re trying to calm me down, but just say something that’s true!” was not in the version screened in Venice this morning. Nor was a scene in which Quell is being questioned about “an incident.” The film focuses largely on Phoenix’s shell-shocked, alcoholic and violence prone character – though one suspects he was shell-shocked long before the war. He stumbles across Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Lancaster Dodd, aka The Master, the affable if ominous leader of “The Cause,” who takes Quell under his wing and begins to “process” him. The pair engages in a pas-de-deux throughout the lush film almost erasing every other player – save Amy Adams who is compelling when on screen. The Weinstein Co releases The Master Sept 21 in the U.S and sneak screenings around the country have resulted in largely glowing reviews.
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Naked orchestra
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Do Nude Scenes Hurt an Actor's Career?
JLine, Boston
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It's time to radically rethink the way we approach nude images sent through social media
If you’ve happened upon any tabloid media over the past week, you’ve likely seen the scowling, scolding headlines about Prince Harry’s “wild night in Vegas.” The shock and awe directed toward the now 27-year-old son of Princess Di was not necessarily about his “wild night,” however, but directed in particular towards photos leaked by some of his comrades during a night of nude billiards. Of course, it was such a scandal—Harry’s whole life seems to be about having the absolute minimum amount of decorum expected of him as a royal — but one can imagine the collective gasp heard ’round Buckingham Palace when his naked butt landed on the Internet. But the typically Victorian horror from the royals brought to light a valid question for Americans, who were ostensibly untethered from the Queen’s morals 200 years ago: why are we so freaked out about sexting? Why are we so freaked out about Internet nudes? And does our fear of the union of the naked human body and technology create an environment where bad-news exploiters (like “revenge pornographer” Hunter Moore) can thrive?
America’s longstanding puritanism is no secret—as a society we are appalled by the human body. Over 500 years after Botticelli painted that sumptuous nude Venus, Americans tend to muster a disproportionate, regressive outrage over far less sexual representations of anatomy. As recently as last week, an artistic nude was censored in Atlanta, as though it revealed some secret and more salacious body part, instead of the ones half the population possess. Transmogrify the nude painting into an artistic photograph, however, and we find far deeper reasons to object: the work of Robert Mapplethorpe, whose nudes were artfully lit and often posed to mimic (also nude) Greek sculpture, is still a point of controversy 22 years after his death.
In our accelerated reality, it’s not too much of a stretch to say that cameraphone nudes, floating on the Internet, are part of the lineage from Botticelli to Mapplethorpe. Maybe they do not generally possess the same level of skill as those greats, but cell pics continue the tradition of capturing the human form in new and strange lights, in ways that reflect a moment in time. Self-captured cell phone images, whether meant for preservation or for stimulation, are perhaps unwittingly part of our new media art flow, where Instagram acts as a conceptual, real-time gallery, and can even be reversed onto canvas. And while Prince Harry was, it seems, leaked without consent, a gross violation, the blurry images of his body, netherparts covered by a hand like Venus de Milo’s strategically placed golden locks, are as reminiscent of classical sculpture as anything.
Does that all sound lofty to you? Perhaps, but maybe it’s time to re-evaluate our thinking on the sext, which inspires incessant hand-wringing and yet is simply a microcosm of America’s freaked-out existence. Harry’s a 27-year-old man, old enough to know what the hell he’s doing, but the shame culture drummed up by his photos sends a very direct message to rebellious teenagers, who adults worry about the most. The shaming says: your nude body is illicit, it is pliable, yet it is a way to get attention. The conflict of the shaming is what we should be worrying about most, as the root issue of sexting that ends up on Web sites and ruins high school reputations.
Americans need to radically rethink the way we approach nude images sent through social media. We look at cameraphone nudes as an extension of porn culture and an inevitable effect of our technology-era voyeurism, and sometimes they are (I am still mad at gossip blogs for exposing me to halfway up Amber Rose’s coochie, but that’s a personal matter). But if we reframe them as an extension of new media art, can we use them as a lesson to stop the endless cycle of feeling bad or moralizing nakedness? More importantly—by changing our reaction to leaked nude cell photos, to something approaching bemused disinterest rather than fixated shock, can we help the selfsame teenagers we fear sexting, feel more comfortable and confident about their bodies and in their own skin?
It’s certainly a hypothetical—it will take a lot more than feeling okay about naked TwitPics to erase hundreds of years of Judeo-Christian finger-wagging. But increasingly, as LEAKED NUDE PHOTOS are top Internet click fodder, and technology offers us more and more ways in which to expose ourselves, maybe LEAKED NUDE PHOTOS are not the problem, but part of the solution.
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17 Things That Make You Dumber
With all the talk about self-improvement these days, people don't pay enough attention to self-worsening. In fact, there are many common behaviors that have been shown in one or more studies to make people stupider.
You can start by turning off most TV shows.
As a follow-up to our 25 ways to boost your intelligence, we've compiled a list of things that decrease intelligence or IQ or cause neurological decline.
Watching reality TV
Sugar
Multitasking
Chewing gum
Watching FOX News
Obesity
Jet lag
Fluoride
Meetings
Being spanked as a child
PowerPoint
Watching SpongeBob
Secondhand smoke
Stress
Ambien and Xanax
Lack of iodine
Smoking weed
