Classic directors to be honored with stamps
(Wed, 23 May 2012 13:58:50 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Frank Capra, John Ford, John Huston and Billy Wilder will be honored with their own stamps featuring images from their most famous movies, the U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday. The collection of auteur postage markers is being billed as the Great Film Directors First-Class Forever stamps. "With these stamps, we're bringing these filmmakers out from behind their cameras and putting them in the spotlight so that we can learn more about them," Samuel Pulcrano, U.S. Postal Service vice president of corporate communications, said in a statement. ...

Cannibalism at the box office: the "Avengers" effect
(Wed, 23 May 2012 12:50:43 -0400)
NEW YORK/LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "The Avengers" is a bona fide box office phenomenon - but is it crowding out every other movie at the cineplex? In the past, the superheroes' moneymaking powers would have been good news for other summertime movies, like "Dark Shadows," "The Dictator" and "Battleship," the argument being that a rising tide lifts all boats. Instead those movies have struggled to stay afloat, with "Battleship" opening to a dismal $25 million. ...

Meryl Streep to present Shirley MacLaine with award
(Wed, 23 May 2012 04:35:58 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Shirley MacLaine will receive the AFI Life Achievement Award from Meryl Streep at the AFI Gala Tribute this year, the organization said Tuesday. MacLaine and Streep co-starred in the 1990 Mike Nichols film "Postcards From the Edge." Streep received the award from the American Film Institute in 2004. "The world loves Shirley MacLaine," AFI president and CEO Bob Gazzale said. "AFI's challenge will be how to fit it all into one evening because hers is a life that spans from movies to television to Broadway, books and beyond. ...

"The Master": creepy Joaquin Phoenix and crazy music
(Mon, 21 May 2012 17:06:18 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - Paul Thomas Anderson has finally given audiences a look at his next picture "The Master," a sure-to-be-controversial look at the origins of a religion that sounds a whole lot like Scientology. The sneak peek features a zonked-out Joaquin Phoenix being grilled by a naval officer about his misbehavior while off-kilter music plays on the soundtrack. The whole thing is mighty unsettling. ...

Singer Plan B in Cannes with debut movie Ill Manors
(Mon, 21 May 2012 05:45:59 -0400)
CANNES, France (Reuters) - The Cannes film festival is a world way from the tough streets of east London where British rapper Ben Drew grew up, but the 28-year-old has come to the glamorous Riviera resort to promote his debut movie "Ill Manors". The hard-hitting drama follows six interweaving lives -- junkie, drug dealer, ex-con, gangster, prostitute and central character Aaron, a kind of moral compass amid the violence, fear and abuse around him. ...

Mila Kunis stalker enters not guilty plea
(Fri, 18 May 2012 18:50:46 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A 27 year-old man pleaded not guilty on Friday to stalking "Black Swan" actress Mila Kunis at her gym despite a previous court order to stay away. Stuart Lynn Dunn could face up to four years in prison if convicted of stalking Kunis and violating a previous restraining order. Dunn was first arrested in January when he broke into a vacant apartment owned by Kunis in West Hollywood. He pleaded no contest was told to stay away from the actress. But he was arrested again in May after showing up for three days at a gym to try and make contact with her, police said. ...

"Hysteria" is a feel-good victorian vibrator comedy
(Thu, 17 May 2012 18:48:37 -0400)
(Some sexual content throughout) LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - "Hysteria" is a fun fling of a movie about medical science at its shakiest. Literally. This amusing period comedy chronicles the invention of the vibrator in the late Victorian era, when doctors used early versions of the electrical device to bring women to sexual satisfaction. This was done in the name of treating women thought to be suffering from "hysteria," a vague diagnostic catch-all that covered pretty much all female complaints from melancholia to mania. ...

"What to Expect" no better than pickles and ice cream
(Thu, 17 May 2012 18:47:51 -0400)
LOS ANGELES (TheWrap.com) - It's said that the only reason women are capable of giving birth more than once is that they forget about the pains of labor once it's all over. Here's hoping that audiences unfortunate enough to see "What to Expect When You're Expecting" undergo a similar bout of amnesia. This insipid comedy uses the best-selling pregnancy guide as a jumping-off point for multiple overlapping storylines, almost all of them banal, trite and hackneyed. ...

Rep. King: CIA, Pentagon, too close to filmmakers
(Wed, 23 May 2012 17:27:32 -0400)
A House committee chairman charged Wednesday that the CIA and Defense Department jeopardized national security by cooperating too closely with filmmakers producing a movie on the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.