Happy All Hallows, Boys & Ghouls

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Put the lotion on its skin!

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I Am Link

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--- Big Dog On Campus - I haven't checked to see how many theaters Wiener-Dog is showing in here in its first week but I assume it's on the smaller side, so I won't nag at everyone to get their ass out to see it just yet, since you might not be able to see it just yet. But the second you have got the chance, do, doody, do. Here's my review from last week. And here's something even better, Richard Brody's outstanding rave for The New Yorker. (Although he's too spoilery so maybe read his after you've seen the movie.) But most importantly go read this chat with Todd Solondz himself, wherein he talks a bunch about the character of Dawn Weiner, the people's princess. (And I adore that illustration by Brian Taylor.)
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--- Euphoric Sisters - I could've sworn I'd posted about this movie once because I will post about Eva Green sitting on a log in a bow if given the chance and this is much more, but I can't find the story in our archives so I guess it slipped through - anyway! Eva Green is going to star in a movie called Euphoria with Alicia Vikander and Charlotte Rampling. Indeed! Green and Vikander are playing "sisters in conflict traveling through Europe toward a mystery destination" and it will shoot in the Alps this summer.

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--- Buncha Lookers - There's been a lot of new about the Looking movie this week since it premiered in San Francisco (it airs on July 23rd on HBO; here's the trailer if you missed it) - here are some fun quotes from the cast on the red carpet, including Jonathan Groff being typically goofy and adorable saying how happy he is about getting to make out with Murray Bartlett (yeah no kidding Jonathan). And a behind-the-scenes photography book is being released later this year - click here for info on that. (thx Mac)
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--- Bonkers For Batgirl - I seriously doubt anything will ever come of this but it's kind of amusing to imagine - in an interview this past week Nicolas Winding Refn said that he'd love to get tossed the keys to the studio kingdom just once to make a great big expensive superhero movie, and the one he'd most like to tackle would be... Batgirl! I'm sure this has nothing to do with the one-time rumor that Neon Demon actress Jena Malone was thought to be playing Batgirl in Batman v Superman (her role got edited out of the final film).

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--- The Doctor Is In(sane) - Some things, like the polar ice caps melting and Fruity Pebbles making milk both colorful and delicious, are just inevitable, and files "Taylor Lautner working with Ryan Murphy" under that same umbrella - Lautner's signed on to co-star in the second season of Scream Queens as, get this, "Dr. Cassidy Cascade." That name is so Soapdish I can hardly stand it. There's a little more info about the show's second season at the link if you're interested - all I care is that Niecy Nash & Glen Powell are back, and they are, sign me up.

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--- Resurrection Crew - We're only what four episodes into Preacher, just before the halfway mark, but AMC likes what they're getting well enough to've just renewed the show for a second season, and a bigger second season at that - the episode count is going up for 10 to 13. Well even if my feelings are a little bit mixed at this point, which we dove into yesterday as we dove on top of Derek Wilson, I'm happy that Dominic Cooper's got a steady job. Who knew after Agent Carter got canned...
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--- River Man - The great and still somehow underrated Michael Sheen is making his directorial debut on a movie about the serial killer Gary Ridgway, aka the Green River Killer of the 1990s; Sheen's also written the script (an adaptation of the graphic novel) and is planning on starring. So I guess he's into serial killers! He's got the eyes for it. I say that with great affection - we can stare crazy eyes at each other all night long, dude.
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--- And Finally file this one alongside the Angels in America piece I posted about earlier under "I have to get my shit together and read these damn things already!" -- here's a big interview with Girlfight and Jennifer's Body and The Invitation director Karyn Kusama that I've been meaning to read all week. Speaking of I should probably go back and watch Girlfight sometime since I have loved both of Kusama's horror films.
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Good Morning, World

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I haven't seen any of the BBC comedy Cuckoo, which just started its second season over there, but I guess it is about Andy Samberg being the nightmare your daughter brings home which isn't that hard a concept to wrap one's head around. Has anybody seen any of it? Anyway that's clearly not Andy Samberg there - that's Taylor Lautner flouncing about in just a towel  (and momentarily less, though they show nothing) in the new season. Hit the jump for the clip and a few more caps if you care...

Raise Your Hand If You Forgot...

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... that Taylor Lautner exists. 

Who, me? (via)

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I Have A Feeling...

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... that that is the single most important frame in all of the Twilight Saga. And even that's messed up by them not cropping his face out. Alas. Here it is in motion the way it was meant to be seen:

TGT11: Great Gratuities of 2011, Runners-Up

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The time has come for the best naked menfolk of the year, according to me. Keep in mind this list (as all of these lists, of course) is highly subjective - although I think a lot of you are here because you find attractive the same gentlemen I tend to find attractive, the logic to the way I had to come up with to organize these guys, from top to bottom (and front to side, and every which way), probably will only make sense to me in the end. So it shall be.

But first up, the also-rans. These are the ones that I managed to remember but missed out on my top twenty. They're all prime obviously, but for the most part they just didn't give up enough this time around to qualify. Sorry, dudes. Please, do better next time! I like it when you try.

As an aside, I've been adding names to this all week so I'm sure there are people I haven't thought of, that slipped my mind, I am only one man and even my encyclopedic knowledge of cinematic bo-hunkery has its limits. And if they slipped my mind at this point I say they must have not done good enough in the first place! So, the runners-up be...

Chris Hemsworth, Thor

Chris Carmack, Shark Night (more here)

Bobby Cannavale, Win Win (more here)

Aaron Johnson, Albert Nobbs (more here)

Dustin Milligan, Shark Night (more here)

Taylor Lautner, Abduction (more here)

Hugh Jackman, Real Steel

Stephen Dorff, Immortals

James Franco, Your Highness

Thomas Jane and Rob Lowe, I Melt With You (more here)

Jon Hamm, Bridesmaids

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poll by twiigs.com

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Coming later --- The Top 20!
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Quote of the Day

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If for no other reason then he says the words "butt cheek(s)" twice therein and thereby  reminds us of his own amply displayed pair, here's Joe Manganiello in a new interview with Out magazine explaining his oh-so-thespianish beefcakery on True Blood:

"As far as the butt cheek stuff goes, it just makes sense. It’s not gratuitous; it’s realistic. If you’re a werewolf and you transform, you lose everything and there are your butt cheeks. The show is a deconstruction of supernatural creatures. It’s not like other werewolf projects, where you magically reappear with tiny jean shorts on.”

Ooh, somebody wants to wrestle Taylor Lautner for werewolf dominance! And everybody wants to watch that. Anyway there are a couple more pics of the Big Man at that link. Plus we learn that at some point he'll be painted gold in Magic Mike. And I have to give props to Steven Soderbergh for making me laugh by saying this about that film:

"It’s kind of a buddy movie. We wanted the feel of Saturday Night Fever, but without the rape scene in the backseat."

Three Pictures Crying Out For Photoshop

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(click to embiggen) That's Taylor Lautner behind the scenes of his camp-flop Abduction, striking a pose I have no doubt he is intimately familiar with. (via) Speaking of his position, I've been sitting on a copy of this movie on DVD for too long without watching it. I have to get my shit together, I could use a long long long laugh right about now.

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I Don't Remember...

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... adding Taylor Lautner's movie Abduction to my Netflix queue, but now that it's here I cannot wait to watch it. Please let it be as terrible as I've been promised!

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A Vampire Shaped Hole In My Head

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I realized something as I sat down to write today's Celebrity Beehive post on the movies in theaters this week - not only have I not seen any of the Twilight movies, but I haven't seen anything of the Twilight movies longer than the snippets they've shown in the trailers for them. No whole scenes... I mean, have I ever even heard Taylor Lautner speak? 

I'm not bragging about this (although I don't feel especially bad about it either), but I do wonder if it somehow marks a hole in my pop cultural understanding that I ought to fill on principle alone. I hate to think that one day I could be on Jeopardy and be confronted with a question about what the hell Dakota Fanning was doing in this series and lose all my dollars because I have no effing clue. Hypothetical Jeopardy Playing Me would be distraught, I tells ya!

Sure, I've picked up bits and pieces, enough to know it sounds like a foul train-wreck of wooden acting and sinister sexless motives, but it's not like I haven't spent a lot of my life watching junk not worth my time or effort. I mean... seriously. SERIOUSLY SO MUCH TIME. What's another few hours on the fire-heap. Sigh. Thanks, Twilight movies. Now I'm depressed.

All Lines Lead To Lautner

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In this week's dose of Movie Buzz at Celebrity Beehive we take a look at this weekend's new releases including Moneyball with Brad Pitt, Puncture with Chris Evans, and Abduction with Taylor Lautner. It's with regards to the latter that I think I've diagnosed what's up with Hollywood's disconnect between what seems like a good idea to them and what seems like a good idea to sane people who are thinking straight. It's a helluva drug.

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I Am Link

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--- Absduction - Glenn got paid to watch Abduction so we don't have to, but after hearing his take on it I'm almost tempted to see it sometime because it sounds completely ludicrous. That Facebook friends line, oh my god! I'm just afraid to see too much of Sigourney slumming it, I wouldn't want to have my adoration tarnished in any way, ever. I hope she makes a great movie again soon. Maybe Red Lights? It's got a good director but Robert DeNiro is not an indicator of quality that's for sure. Come on, Siggy! I want an Oscar in your hands, woman!

--- Leatherface Lovefest - Adam finished up his long-running "Something Rank" countdown - where he listed from bottom to top his favorite Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween and Friday the 13th films - this week with the precisely correct choice. Yay Adam! Great stuff.

--- Something Queer - I've got to write up my thoughts on lil' gay indie Weekend soon, but for now you should check out fourfour's take, splendidly expressed as it always is over there. And the NYT has a chat with the film's director Andrew Haigh, as well. 

--- We're All Next - Speaking of movies I need to review, I just watched A Horrible Way To Die this past week, and its director Adam Wingard just sold his new movie, called You're Next, which was a big hit with audiences in Toronto. It's about a family reunion that gets attacked by animal-masked murderers, which yes I will eat that right up, thank you.

--- Go Games - In theory I'm all "Hells yeah!" towards this rant at io9 on why The Hunger Games series is far superior to the Twilight books/movies franchise, but I can't profess true knowledge since I have yet to even watch even a scene from a single Twilight movie, much less read the books. Still, people I trust say it is so! And The Hunger Games are so good. So yeah! Yeah!

--- Kiki Forever - I haven't read the whole thing yet but it's lovely to see an admiring piece on Kirsten Dunst in the world at the New York Times no less, since we love her so much and grew weary of all the dislike we'd seen aimed her way for such a long while. (Okay when she dated Jake even I did that some, but let's forget that... stop glaring at me, Reese Witherspoon!) I'm dying to see Melancholia, is the point. Just about two weeks til NYFF!

--- Robo Talk - Slash has a quote from the unknown-to-me Brazilian director Jose Padilha, the dude who got handed the remake-duties for Robocop once Darren Aronofsky moved on, and it sounds like he's interested in the body-horror aspects of merging with a robot more than Verhoeven's film was, which, okay.

--- Tattoo Time - I myself haven't watched the new Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trailer yet so maybe you haven't and will appreciate my pointing you in that direction. Maybe? Anyway if there's any shirtless Daniel Craig to be had expect another post once I get to it. That new poster seen there though is hot business.

--- Eyes Spy - There's forward momentum on Timecrimes director Nacho Vigilando's next movie (he's already got one in the can, called Extraterrestrial that we're waiting on), his first in the English language, called Windows, which is being described as a "Rear Window for the internet age." Timecrimes is so amazing and rewatchable that that description only makes me cringe a little bit.

--- Bit Parts - This piece on character actors in the NYT gets credit for giving love to some of the current greats - hey Judy Greer, girlfriend - but I thought it got especially interesting at the end when it talked about pretty movie stars like Brad Pitt that are actually character actors buried down in their gooey centers.

--- Avenge Me - The scope of "who cares about this news" is probably pretty small, but since I am amongst those excited I don't care I'm sharing - there will be an Avengers panel at New York Comic Con, and they will show never-before-seen footage, and there will be "surprise guests" which oh my god I just want Joss!!!

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I Am Link

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--- Girls' Man - We won't see David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo movie until Christmas, but we're getting some promotional junk already all the same - Slash has some character portraits (including that look at the ever-handsome crags of Daniel Craig) as well as our first listen of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross' score for the movie. Make that Oscar winner Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. I love saying that.

--- Deadly Departed - Everybody's talking today about the piece in the Hollywood Reporter about how Frank Darabont actually got canned from AMC's The Walking Dead instead of anything amicable, like had been the original story. The behind-the-scenes on that series has been so sordid I guessed as much when this news first came out; Darabont seems like a tough old bird.

--- Long Song - Nathaniel rightly rants against the "franchise culture" where no story has an ending any more in this piece at The Film Experience, although I do take some issue with his inclusion of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series therein in the comments. I haven't spoken on it much since finishing it but the latest book, A Dance With Dragons, ranks amongst my favorites of the series so far, even as it widened the scope of the story even further which had started to seem a problem to me in the last book. The "diversions" have become to solidify for me into a purposeful form of story-telling.

--- Abs-duction - How bad does Abduction look? Answer: so bad. So very bad. Still, I can't knock them trying to sell the thing off of Taylor "Monchichi" Lautner's impressive torso. It's the right move. They'd be better off cutting the picture off at the shoulders, but at least we don't have to hear his voice.

--- Deadbeat Dad - Dermot Mulroney has joined the cast of Park Chan-wook's ever-awesomer Stoker. He will play the pivotal but one assumes only briefly-seen character of Mia Wasikowska's character's father, the death of whom sets the entire tale into motion.

--- Slaughter High - A couple of nifty murder-flavored artistic endeavors spread across the web this week and BD gathered 'em both in one spot - an infographic detailing all of Jason Voorhee's kills in the Friday the 13th films, and a super-cut video with all of the deaths in the first four Final Destination movies.

--- Boy Blond - I was saddened to hear that Greta Gerwig had to bow out of Derek Cianfrance's The Place Behind the Pines, but since I like Rose Byrne quite a bit if Greta had to go this is a fine choice. Speaking of that movie, set pics of Ryan Gosling behind bleached-out and hot have been plentiful.

--- Revvin' Refn - Speaking of Ryan Gosling, when we saw the trailer for Drive I think I mentioned how instantly excited it made me for the movie - multiply that by a thousand after reading Glenn's ecstatic thoughts on the movie after seeing it at MIFF. It's the best thing he saw at the entire festival he says, and he saw Scorsese's The King of Comedy there, so wowza.

--- Latest Stand - David Yates, who proved his mettle with the past several Harry Potter movies, is rejoining with his screenwriter for those to make a feature-film version of Stephen King's The Stand. I love this. Yates seemed drawn to the dark-side with Voldemort time and again and he'll finally get to go off the R-rated deep end with this. King's book scared me to death but I haven't read it in a dozen years. Perhaps it's time to pick it back up?

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Kellan's Shirtless Walk of Shame (aka Flop Sweat)

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(via) Did y'all see how Kellan's movie with Mandy Moore that came out last weekend - directed by Dermot Mulroney - got the dreaded 0% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes? I guess this is what's known as changing one's headlines. Hey everybody, I still look like this! It's one long slog til Immortals in November, eh Kellan?

What's that, there's a Twilight movie between now and then he can cling to? Yeah... those don't register round these parts. Unless! Unless we get more stories like this:

"The biggest shocker to come out of the MTV Movie Awards on Sunday night (June 5) was hands down that Robert Pattinson treated Taylor Lautner to a smooch almost as passionate as the ones in the Golden Popcorn-winning "Twilight Saga" films.

But while it came as a surprise to those of us watching the awards show, the stars of this year's nominated "Eclipse" said it was about time the two onscreen rivals shared a kiss.

"It was about damn time, man. It's been up in the air for about three years now. I think we've all been waiting for Rob and Taylor to kiss," Jackson Rathbone told MTV News when we caught up with him backstage at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Los Angeles. "We knew it was coming, and finally it did. Finally, they acknowledged their love for each other."

Rathbone's vampire brother Kellan Lutz admitted he was a bit surprised, but their co-star Peter Facinelli (ed: mmm Facinelli) shared a little secret about how the RPattz/Taylor smooch went off without a hitch.

"They asked us to show them in practice," Facinelli said.

"We taught them everything they know," Lutz confirmed."

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Sparkly Vamps & Sexy Monchichis, So Stoned

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My first instinct upon reading the news that Robert Pattinson was replacing my beloved Colin Farrell in David Cronenberg's next flick Cosmopolis - yes an adaptation of the Don Delillo novel - was surprise. (It really was! You can see the tweet documenting it.) But once that calmed down it didn't seem like a total travesty really - sure I always want more Colin and him working with Cronenberg would've been a hoot, but he's got loads of projects lined up and I'll be seeing plenty of him over the next couple years... and truth be told I generally want to like Robert Pattinson. He seems like a decent guy, somehow wrangling a tiny bit of levity from his insane situation, and well I do find him very very pretty.

Plus ya haters be damned I like Kristen Stewart. She was lovely in Adventureland and very very good in The Runaways. Nyah nyah nyah I can't hear you, and I can probably keep hold of these claims since I haven't watched any of the Twilight films. And last night did y'all catch them, along with The Hot-Abbed Monchichi...


... at the People's Choice Awards? Somehow I ended up watching about half an hour of those awful, awful things, and the Twilight trio were so completely stoned out of their mind it amused me to no end.


I mean, seriously. Hot-Abbed Monchichi was giggling like he snorted fairy dust while RPattz and KStew just sort of stared blankly into space... their stupor won me over even more, but I'm soooo easy. So go ahead and work with David Cronenberg, RPattz, and perhaps you'll convince some skeptical minds out here. I'm open, willing, and several other suggestive adverbs to what you've got to offer.

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