The first trailer for the movie has arrived via MTV and after all the talk, buzz and numerous images of the young cast in bikinis....is this what you were expecting? Are you ready to roll with gold toothed, corn-rowed Franco? In case you forgot, the Oscar nominee and one time Oscar co-host plays Alien, who bails some bad girls out of jail and takes them under his wing. As for the rest, well, you get the idea. And with a score by Skrillex and Cliff Martinez, you probably have to be allergic to fun not to get anything out of this.
"Spring Breakers" lands in theaters in NY/LA on March 22nd, opens wide on March 29th and will hit the SXSW Film Festival. Watch below hte U.S. version and shorter interantional spot below.
Get More: Movie Trailers, Movies Blog
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A24 Bags Sofia Coppola's 'The Bling Ring' With Emma Watson and Paris Hilton
New distributor A24 has acquired U.S. rights to Sofia Coppola’s new film “The Bling Ring,” starring Emma Watson, for a June release. The collaboration is unsurprising since the company is set to release “Bling Ring” producer (and Sofia’s brother) Roman Coppola’s latest film, “A Glimpse Inside the Mind of Charles Swan III” in February. Based on Nancy Jo Sales’ Vanity Fair article “The Suspects Wore Louboutins,” “Bling Ring” tells the real-life story of a group of rich kids from the San Fernando Valley who went nearly a year robbing celebrities’ homes before getting caught. Leslie Mann, Gavin Rossdale, Paris Hilton (who was one of those robbed), Israel Broussard, Katie Chang, Claire Julien and Taissa Farmiga co-star.
"Sofia Coppola is an iconic American filmmaker and she has focused her distinctive style and uncanny ability to capture the zeitgeist in 'The Bling Ring,'" said A24 principals David Fenkel, John Hodges and Daniel Katz. "We are thrilled to be working with her and look forward to bringing her undeniably fun and incredibly stylistic film to audiences nationwide."
Roman Coppola, Sofia Coppola and Youree Henley produced. Emilio Diez Barroso and Darlene Caamano Loquet of NALA Films, which co-financed the film; Michael Zakin and Francis Ford Coppola of American Zoetrope; and Fred Roos and Paul Rassam are executive producers.
A24 negotiated the deal with Bart Walker of ICM Partners and Barry Hirsch of Hirsch Wallerstein Hayum Matlof + Fishman on behalf of the filmmakers.
Formed last year, A24 will release "Ginger and Rosa" and "Spring Breakers" in 2013.
"Nicki, Sam and Rebecca try on outfits for Marc, he helps style them, while he’s looking online, telling them celebrity tidbits. Nicki and Sam love taking their tops off..."
Another scene could be a showstopper and again Ms. Watson is the centerpiece:
"Rob, from the club, is asleep in his bed in the small dark room. Nicki climbs in through a window into his room, back-lit from a street lamp. He looks over and sees Nicki dancing around for him in jean cut-offs with the gun.
She climbs on him in bed. He takes off her shorts, her ankles wiggle out of them. She disappears under the sheets."
The script never mentioned if she was topless or does a slow strip. You just feel Sofia was hoping to ensnare a top starlet by purposely being vague on descriptions and then hoping everything will worked it out on the set.
Claire Julien claimed it will be rated R for language. Nothing on sexual content.
A24 is a new player on distribution front. They're banking big time on Spring Breakers (2012) to be a box-office success.
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YouTube offering Sundance Film Festival shorts online
You don't need a Sundance Film Festival pass or a flight to Park City, Utah, to get a front row seat at this year's festival.Launching today in conjunction with the start of the festival, the Screening Room YouTube channel will showcase 12 short films from the 2013 Sundance Short Film program.
The Sundance programming team selected 65 short films from a record 8,102 submissions. Out of the 65 short films selected, 12 will be shown on the Screening Room YouTube channel.
Broken Night, the nightmarish film from award-winning writer Guillermo Arriaga (21 Grams, Babel) and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan), will be one of the 12 shorts making their debut today.
"Short films have always been a very important part of our programming mix," says Keri Putnam, executive director of the Sundance Institute. "It's a very exciting opportunity to partner with YouTube to share these films with a much wider audience."
The partnership supports YouTube's ongoing efforts to bring professionally produced quality programming to the Web, while allowing Sundance to raise awareness for outstanding short films online and outside of the festival circuit.
In addition to short films, the Screening Room on YouTube will showcase two films every week from the Sundance archives and other film festivals around the world starting Feb. 1. Also, as part of the partnership, festival goers will be seeing YouTube content from its original channels before each screening of the shorts selection.
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Aussie Jessica Marais moves from comedy to the underworld of ‘Magic City’
Jessica Marais might not be a household name, but the Aussie actress could soon become more famous as she expands her role on the period drama ‘Magic City’.
Born in South Africa, Marais spent her childhood bouncing around Canada and New Zealand before landing in Australia, where she then grew up. While attending the National Institute for Dramatic Art, she won the role of Rachel Rafter on the Australian TV show ‘Packed to the Rafters’, which would catapult her to fame in her homeland and land her a hot fiancé, co-star James Stewart!
Marais played the role of Rachel Rafter for four years and got engaged to Stewart along the way, but eventually left the show as she wanted to concentrate on her family. She and Stewart welcomed a baby girl, Scout, in 2012; Marais shared with the magazine Who! that her daughter’s name has literary roots: “To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favourite novels, my mum brought me up reading it, and it never fails to move me.”
‘Packed to the Rafters’ won a slew of awards in Australia and was a critical hit. The show was nominated for dozens of Logie Awards over its run and Marais received several nominations herself, taking home the awards for Most Popular New Female Talent and Most Outstanding New Talent in 2009. She was also nominated for the Most Popular Actress award in 2010, 2011, and 2012, though she didn’t win.
‘Rafters’ wasn’t her only work, though. Marais had a small role in the 2012 horror film ‘Needle’ and had a recurring role as the brutal bodyguard Denna on the American TV show ‘Legend of the Seeker’ from 2009 to 2010. But it wasn’t until two years later that her biggest role yet would come calling in the form of a period gangster drama.
In 2012 the miniseries ‘Magic City’ launched in the US, telling the story of a Miami hotelier in the 1950s who strikes a deal with a corrupt gang boss in order to save his business. Marais signed on as the gangster’s trophy wife, Lily Diamond, and is slated to return this year in the show’s second season.
As Marais decided to move to the U.S. to concentrate on her American film and TV career, partner Stewart also left ‘Packed to the Rafters’ in order to support her and care for baby Scout during the transition. The couple relocated to Los Angeles, California, with Marais also working in Miami while filming ‘Magic City’.
Of working on the show, Marais told The Sydney Morning Herald that the set was absolutely authentic to the period details: “They don’t use anything that isn’t authentically from the 1950s. Even the things you don’t see, the right undergarments, the size of a heel on a shoe. The result is a world which 100 per cent informs your performance and informs the detail in your work.”
She also said that she found Lily to be a much more complicated and fun role to play than one might expect: “There are so many layers to peel back with her, and as the first season unfolds you realise there’s so much more going on,” she says. “Lily is one of the only female characters that is capable of playing in this dangerous, masculine world.” Marais has previously stated that she’s having no problem dropping the baby weight gained during her pregnancy with Scout, as she gained a mere 7kg during her pregnancy due to a penchant for healthy snacks!
Born in South Africa, Marais spent her childhood bouncing around Canada and New Zealand before landing in Australia, where she then grew up. While attending the National Institute for Dramatic Art, she won the role of Rachel Rafter on the Australian TV show ‘Packed to the Rafters’, which would catapult her to fame in her homeland and land her a hot fiancé, co-star James Stewart!
Marais played the role of Rachel Rafter for four years and got engaged to Stewart along the way, but eventually left the show as she wanted to concentrate on her family. She and Stewart welcomed a baby girl, Scout, in 2012; Marais shared with the magazine Who! that her daughter’s name has literary roots: “To Kill a Mockingbird is one of my favourite novels, my mum brought me up reading it, and it never fails to move me.”
‘Packed to the Rafters’ won a slew of awards in Australia and was a critical hit. The show was nominated for dozens of Logie Awards over its run and Marais received several nominations herself, taking home the awards for Most Popular New Female Talent and Most Outstanding New Talent in 2009. She was also nominated for the Most Popular Actress award in 2010, 2011, and 2012, though she didn’t win.
‘Rafters’ wasn’t her only work, though. Marais had a small role in the 2012 horror film ‘Needle’ and had a recurring role as the brutal bodyguard Denna on the American TV show ‘Legend of the Seeker’ from 2009 to 2010. But it wasn’t until two years later that her biggest role yet would come calling in the form of a period gangster drama.
In 2012 the miniseries ‘Magic City’ launched in the US, telling the story of a Miami hotelier in the 1950s who strikes a deal with a corrupt gang boss in order to save his business. Marais signed on as the gangster’s trophy wife, Lily Diamond, and is slated to return this year in the show’s second season.
As Marais decided to move to the U.S. to concentrate on her American film and TV career, partner Stewart also left ‘Packed to the Rafters’ in order to support her and care for baby Scout during the transition. The couple relocated to Los Angeles, California, with Marais also working in Miami while filming ‘Magic City’.
Of working on the show, Marais told The Sydney Morning Herald that the set was absolutely authentic to the period details: “They don’t use anything that isn’t authentically from the 1950s. Even the things you don’t see, the right undergarments, the size of a heel on a shoe. The result is a world which 100 per cent informs your performance and informs the detail in your work.”
She also said that she found Lily to be a much more complicated and fun role to play than one might expect: “There are so many layers to peel back with her, and as the first season unfolds you realise there’s so much more going on,” she says. “Lily is one of the only female characters that is capable of playing in this dangerous, masculine world.” Marais has previously stated that she’s having no problem dropping the baby weight gained during her pregnancy with Scout, as she gained a mere 7kg during her pregnancy due to a penchant for healthy snacks!
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Starz's "Da Vinci's Demons" To Premiere At MIPTV
STARS AND SHOWRUNNER TO ATTEND MIPTV 2013 WORLD PREMIERE TV SCREENING
PARIS, Jan. 16, 2013 — PARIS, Jan. 16, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- MIPTV today announces that Starz Entertainment's brand new drama Da Vinci's Demons, will debut as MIPTV's 2013 World Premiere TV Screening in Cannes, France. International buyers and media will get an exclusive international preview of the eight-part series' first episode in the Palais des Festivals' Grand Auditorium on Monday 8 April. Organised by Reed MIDEM, MIPTV will take place in Cannes from 8-11 April 2013.
The screening of Da Vinci's Demons will be followed by an on-stage conversation with writer and showrunner David S. Goyer, along with the series' principal cast Tom Riley and Laura Haddock. The talent will later walk the red carpet to attend the MIPTV opening night party.
Produced by Adjacent Productions for Starz Entertainment, Da Vinci's Demons is being sold internationally at MIPTV by BBC Worldwide.
Da Vinci's Demons is a historical fantasy following the 'untold' story of the world's greatest genius during his turbulent youth in Renaissance Florence. The series reveals the secret history of Leonardo Da Vinci, a young man tortured by the gift of superhuman genius. The Italian painter and inventor – a bastard son who yearned for legitimacy – finds himself in the midst of a conflict between truth and lies, religion and reason, past and future.
British actor Tom Riley (Monroe, Arcadia, Bouquet of Barbed Wire, Posh, My City) stars in the title role. Riley has received wide critical acclaim in the UK for his performances in theatre, film and on television, one of his best-known roles being in ITV's drama series Monroe. Laura Haddock (The Inbetweeners Movie, Upstairs, Downstairs, Storage 24, Strikeback, Missing) plays Lucrezia Donati, the mistress of Lorenzo Medici and Da Vinci's lover. Haddock is a 27-year-old regular of British television.
David S. Goyer, co-writer of critically-acclaimed blockbusters The Dark Knight trilogy and Man of Steel, is Da Vinci's Demons' showrunner, writer, executive producer and director of some episodes. "Given that Da Vinci was the model for the Renaissance Man, these were incredibly large shoes to fill," commented Goyer. "Leonardo had to be smart, witty, and incredibly confident. He also had to be tormented, because as a true visionary and polymath he was ostracised for his ideas as much as he was celebrated. Tom came in and was able to effortlessly combine all of those elements."
Jane Tranter, Head of Adjacent Productions, added: "The young life of this incredibly complex and brilliant man had not yet been explored. With David Goyer, whose imagination has created juggernaut and iconic theatrical features, coupled with the premium presence of Chris Albrecht, Carmi Zlotnik and their Starz team, we couldn't be more passionate about bringing this story to international audiences."
Julie Gardner (Torchwood, Doctor Who) is also executive producer, along with Adjacent's Tranter (Rome, Little Dorrit). Production on the series began in summer 2012, and Starz will launch the show in the US in 2013. BBC Worldwide will distribute the series in international territories. FOX International Channels has acquired first window Pay-TV rights in all its broadcasting markets, and is planning to premiere the series in tandem with Starz US.
"We are delighted and honoured that Starz and BBC Worldwide have chosen MIPTV to premiere Da Vinci's Demons to an international audience, in the presence of its lead cast and distinguished writer," said Laurine Garaude, Director of Reed MIDEM's Television Division. "The recurring success of the World Premiere TV Screenings at MIPCOM and MIPTV confirms the event's position as a premium showcase for leading television and film companies to screen outstanding programmes to the most influential buyers, industry players, and international media from over 100 countries."
For press registration details, click here.
About Adjacent Productions - Adjacent Productions is a label that sits within BBC Worldwide Productions, one of five core businesses under BBC Worldwide America, the U.S. division of BBC Worldwide, the main commercial arm and wholly-owned subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The Adjacent Productions label serves to identify new programming created by the Los Angeles-based production company, while BBC Worldwide Productions identifies BBC reformats that the team develops and produced for the U.S. market. The first original series under the Adjacent Productions label is Da Vinci's Demons (Starz), set to premiere spring 2013.
About BBC Worldwide Ltd. - BBC Worldwide Limited is the main commercial arm and a wholly owned subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The company exists to exploit the value of the BBC's assets for the benefit of the licence fee payer and invest in public service programming in return for rights. The company has five core businesses: Channels, Content and Production, Sales and Distribution, Consumer Products and Global Brands. In 2011/12, BBC Worldwide generated headline profits of £155 million on headline sales of £1085 million and returned £216 million to the BBC. For more detailed performance information please see our Annual Review website.
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Meet the Sundance Filmmakers #28 : 'Stake Land' Filmmmaker Jim Mickle Gets Close to Cannibals in 'We Are What We Are'
American remakes of foreign movies have been a consistent part of both indie and mainstream filmmaking for a while now. But not many of those imports feature flesh-eating cannibals. Pennsylvania native and NYU grad Jim Mickle is ready for his third feature "We Are What We Are" to hit Sundance, an adaptation of Jorge Michel Grau's "Somos lo que hay." After his last film "Stake Land" premiered at TIFF's MIdnight Madness back in 2010, Mickle tells us about his continued attempts to rework the genre and his on-the-job training in filmmaking. What It's About: "Two teenage sisters in upstate New York are forced to deal with the dark, age-old rituals of their seemingly normal family. A re-imagining of Jorge Michel Grau's film SOMOS LO QUE HAY."
Now What It's REALLY About: "It's about tradition and the power of faith and how easily that can all be harnessed for some bad, scary things."
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22-years old Texan model Kait(lyn) Schram @ Dawson and Ford
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Phoenix : Photography by Kesler Tran for C-heads
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Radical Islamists have transformed vast stretches of desert in the north into an enclave for al-Qaeda militants and other jihadists. They have imposed a hard-edged brand of sharia law, echoing Afghanistan’s Taliban movement, in this West African country where moderate Islam has thrived for centuries.
People are deprived of basic freedoms, historic tombs have been destroyed, and any cultural practices deemed un-Islamic are banned. Children are denied education. The sick and elderly die because many doctors and nurses have fled, and most clinics and hospitals have been destroyed or looted.
In March, the militants joined forces with secular Tuareg separatists, fueled by weapons from the arsenal of former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, to seize control of the north in the wake of a military coup that crippled the government. The extremists then pushed out the Tuareg rebels and solidified their control.
In August, they began establishing courts, jails and police forces in major towns, according to human rights activists. The police scour neighborhoods for anyone who disobeys their decrees.
“It’s much more organized now,” said Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher on Mali for Human Rights Watch, referring to the network of courts and police. “The Islamists have taken away the joie de vivre of the people.”
On Oct. 9, Mariam Conate, 15, was walking to her uncle’s house in Timbuktu. She had forgotten to fully cover her face. Two Islamist police officers confronted her, and “one held me, the other beat me with the barrel of his gun,” Conate recalled. “They took me to their headquarters and threw me into a room. They locked the door and left.”
Outside, her jailors discussed her future. One wanted to cut off her ears as punishment. The other wanted to send her to a prison where six of her friends had been raped, she said. She was also worried that she would be forced to marry a militant, a fate her cousin had recently suffered.
“As I listened, I was trembling and crying,” Conate said.
U.N. and Malian officials said they have learned of many cases of rape and forced weddings by Islamist gunmen in the north. Two weeks ago, U.N. Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson told U.N. members that sexual violence is prevalent in the region.
Publicly, though, the Islamists have claimed moral righteousness, banning sex before marriage. In August, they stoned a couple to death after accusing them of adultery. Now the Islamists are systematically asking men and women who walk together whether they are married. In the town of Kidal, the Islamists are making lists of unmarried pregnant women in order to punish them and their partners, said U.N. and Malian human rights officials and local community leaders.
“They are going around asking every pregnant woman who made her pregnant,” said Alkaya Toure, an official with Cri de Coeur, a Malian human rights group. “They also rely on spies inside the populations in Gao, Timbuktu and elsewhere.”
But as a reward for loyalty, the Islamists have found a religious loophole. They have encouraged their fighters to marry women and girls, some as young as 10, and often at gunpoint. After sex, they initiate a quick divorce. In an extreme case that has shocked the country, a girl in Timbuktu was forced last month to “marry” six fighters in one night, according to a report in one of Mali’s biggest newspapers.
“They are abusing religion to force women and girls to have intercourse,” said Ibrahima Berte, an official at Mali’s National Commission for Human Rights. “This kind of forced marriage is really just sexual abuse.”
In a telephone interview, a senior Islamist commander conceded that his fighters were marrying young girls.
“Our religion says that if a girl is 12, she must get married to avoid losing her virginity in a wrong way,” said Oumar Ould Hamaha, the military leader of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, one of the three radical groups ruling the north. The other two are al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the network’s North and West Africa affiliate; and Ansar Dine, or “defenders of the faith.”
Conate was eventually set free after a cousin who knew one of the Islamists intervened. On Oct. 12, she fled to Segou, where she stays with an aunt in a small, crowded house.
Boys, too, are being abused. With a possible war looming, some as young as 10 have been taken to training camps, where they learn to use weapons and plant homemade bombs, U.N. officials and human rights activists say. And as the economy worsens in rebel areas, some parents have “sold” their children as it becomes harder to buy food and to curry favor with the Islamists.
“They give $10 to impoverished parents to recruit their children in the name of defending Islam,” said Gaoussou Traore, the secretary general of Comade, a Malian children’s rights group. “The Islamists tell parents that their children will go to paradise, that they will benefit in the next world.”
Pro-government self-defense militias in the south, made up of civilians seeking to liberate the north, have also recruited children, activists say.
“The situation of children in Mali is normally very bad,” Traore said. “With the arrival of the Islamists, it’s become a lot worse.”‘They came to destroy us’
In a few parts of the north, the Islamists have been more lenient with the locals because they are from the same tribes. But Timbuktu is controlled by hard-liners from all three groups, particularly AQIM, which is largely made up of foreigners. There, the sharia codes have been fiercely enforced.
By some estimates, more than half the population of 60,000 has fled; a majority of the refugees in Segou and the capital, Bamako, are from Timbuktu, said Western refugee officials and community leaders.
But the price of escape has been steep. Maman Dedeou, a 22-year-old laborer, has no job in Bamako, where he lives with relatives who are also refugees. Like them, all he possesses are bitter memories.
“I just eat and sleep,” he said, raising his injured right arm, wrapped in a thick white bandage, as an explanation.
The extremists have not stopped at destroying ancient mausoleums and shrines in Timbuktu, which was an important center for Islamic learning 500 years ago. They have also targeted shop owners such as Moktar Ben Sidi, 50, who sold traditional masks and other items to Western tourists. One day, a group of Islamist fighters broke down his door and smashed everything, he said.
“They said such artifacts were forbidden under Islam,” Sidi said. “They didn’t come to help us. They came to destroy us.”
Inside his barbershop, Ali Maiga, 33, had a mural of hairstyles favored by American and French rappers on the wall. The Islamists sprayed white paint over it, he recalled, and warned him that he risks being whipped if he shaves off anyone’s beard.
Juddu Bojuama, 26, was thrown in jail, accused by the Islamist police of drinking a beer. He denials went unheard. “They beat me 100 times with a tree branch,” he said, pointing at his back and legs.
Dedeou, the laborer, suffered even more. He recalled having no lawyer when he stood before an Islamic judge on charges of stealing a mattress. Afterward, he said, police tied his arms and legs and took away his cellphone. They took him to a clearing near the Niger River, where a man gave him two injections that put him to sleep.
Dedeou woke up in a hospital. His right hand had been amputated.
An Islamist fighter, standing guard at his bedside, uttered a judgment that Dedeou said he could never forget:
“This is the punishment God has decided for you.”
* Where is the outrage from 'moderate' Muslims including our own? Oh right....the bozos only react when someone 'insults' Islam. Someone in charge should send Keith Ellison to Mali to talk to the Islamists about 'real' Islam. Instead of preaching to us about Islamophobia, Keith service is much more required in Mali. Respect to French for leading the way to get rid of the crazies.
* For my English loyal blog visitors:
Premiere screening of Netflix’s new miniseries starring Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright; directors of the nine-part series include Fincher and Joel Schumacher.
Now What It's REALLY About: "It's about tradition and the power of faith and how easily that can all be harnessed for some bad, scary things."
Biggest Challenge?: "Time. This film was the hardest for me so far even though it had more money and resources than my first 2 movies combined and the scale of this story was so much smaller than the apocalyptic worlds we had been focusing on before. I'm writing this from the middle of our sound mix and the premiere is less than 2 weeks off. We started the script this time last year, and though it's an absolute dream to write an independent film, go right into pre-production and shooting right away, it's bound to cost a good deal of personal sanity. Larry Fessenden's theory is that you never finish a movie, you just get to a point where you have to stop and walk away. That's kind of exciting and scary and depressing all at once."
What I Shot On: "2 RED Epics."
What I Want Audiences To Remember: "I hope films like this show that horror movies are more than just thin excuses to get blood hungry teenagers to buy tickets on opening weekend. EVEN if it's a horror remake..."
In the Works: "Seeing how audiences respond to this film which is such an exciting time in the movie's life. I imagine it's like dropping off your kid for the first day of school and hoping he gets along with everyone and grows up to be a cool kid even if you're not there to hold his hand every step of the way."
22-years old Texan model Kait(lyn) Schram @ Dawson and Ford
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Phoenix : Photography by Kesler Tran for C-heads
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In northern Mali, Islamists’ attacks against civilians grow more brutal
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| Maman Dedeou, 22, lost his hand after appearing in an Islamic court on charges of stealing a mattress. Islamist radicals, who control northern Mali, are imposing a harsh version of sharia law and doling out brutal punishments to civilians. |
SEGOU, Mali — On a sweltering afternoon, Islamist police officers dragged Fatima Al Hassan out of her house in the fabled city of Timbuktu. They beat her up, shoved her into a white pickup truck and drove her to their headquarters. She was locked up in a jail as she awaited her sentence: 100 lashes with an electrical cord.
“Why are you doing this?” she recalled asking.
Hassan was being punished for giving water to a male visitor.
The Islamist radicals who seized a vast arc of territory in northern Mali in the spring are intensifying their brutality against the population, according to victims, human rights groups, and U.N. and Malian officials. The attacks are being perpetrated as the United States, European countries and regional powers are readying an African force to retake northern Mali, after months of hesitation.
But such an action, if approved by the U.N. Security Council, is unlikely to begin until next summer or fall, U.S. and other Western officials say, and political turmoil in the south is adding to the uncertainty. That has raised fears that the extremists could consolidate their grip over the Texas-size territory and further terrorize civilians, particularly women and children.
“The people are losing all hope,” said Sadou Diallo, a former mayor of the northern city of Gao. “For the past eight months, they have lived without any government, without any actions taken against the Islamists. Now the Islamists feel they can do anything to the people.”
Refugees fleeing the north are now bringing stories that are darker than those recounted in interviews from this summer. Although their experiences cannot be independently verified — because the Islamists have threatened to kill or kidnap Westerners who visit — U.N. officials and human rights activists say that they have heard similar reports of horrific abuses and that some may amount to war crimes.
The refugees say the Islamists are raping and forcibly marrying women, and recruiting children for armed conflict. Social interaction deemed an affront to their interpretation of Islam is zealously punished through Islamic courts and a police force that has become more systematic and inflexible, human rights activists and local officials say.
Two weeks ago, the Islamists publicly whipped three couples 100 times each in Timbuktu for not being married, human rights activists said.
The Islamist police had spotted Hassan giving water to a male visitor at her house last month. Hassan’s brother knew an Islamist commander and pleaded for mercy. After spending 18 hours in jail, she was set free with a warning. The next day, she fled here to Segou, a town in southern Mali that has taken in thousands of the displaced, mostly women and children.
It was fortunate, Hassan said, that she was handing the glass to her friend out on the veranda. “If they had found me with him near the bedroom, they would have shot us both on the spot,” she said. With organization, ‘abuse’
“Why are you doing this?” she recalled asking.
Hassan was being punished for giving water to a male visitor.
The Islamist radicals who seized a vast arc of territory in northern Mali in the spring are intensifying their brutality against the population, according to victims, human rights groups, and U.N. and Malian officials. The attacks are being perpetrated as the United States, European countries and regional powers are readying an African force to retake northern Mali, after months of hesitation.
But such an action, if approved by the U.N. Security Council, is unlikely to begin until next summer or fall, U.S. and other Western officials say, and political turmoil in the south is adding to the uncertainty. That has raised fears that the extremists could consolidate their grip over the Texas-size territory and further terrorize civilians, particularly women and children.
“The people are losing all hope,” said Sadou Diallo, a former mayor of the northern city of Gao. “For the past eight months, they have lived without any government, without any actions taken against the Islamists. Now the Islamists feel they can do anything to the people.”
Refugees fleeing the north are now bringing stories that are darker than those recounted in interviews from this summer. Although their experiences cannot be independently verified — because the Islamists have threatened to kill or kidnap Westerners who visit — U.N. officials and human rights activists say that they have heard similar reports of horrific abuses and that some may amount to war crimes.
The refugees say the Islamists are raping and forcibly marrying women, and recruiting children for armed conflict. Social interaction deemed an affront to their interpretation of Islam is zealously punished through Islamic courts and a police force that has become more systematic and inflexible, human rights activists and local officials say.
Two weeks ago, the Islamists publicly whipped three couples 100 times each in Timbuktu for not being married, human rights activists said.
The Islamist police had spotted Hassan giving water to a male visitor at her house last month. Hassan’s brother knew an Islamist commander and pleaded for mercy. After spending 18 hours in jail, she was set free with a warning. The next day, she fled here to Segou, a town in southern Mali that has taken in thousands of the displaced, mostly women and children.
It was fortunate, Hassan said, that she was handing the glass to her friend out on the veranda. “If they had found me with him near the bedroom, they would have shot us both on the spot,” she said.
People are deprived of basic freedoms, historic tombs have been destroyed, and any cultural practices deemed un-Islamic are banned. Children are denied education. The sick and elderly die because many doctors and nurses have fled, and most clinics and hospitals have been destroyed or looted.
In March, the militants joined forces with secular Tuareg separatists, fueled by weapons from the arsenal of former Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, to seize control of the north in the wake of a military coup that crippled the government. The extremists then pushed out the Tuareg rebels and solidified their control.
In August, they began establishing courts, jails and police forces in major towns, according to human rights activists. The police scour neighborhoods for anyone who disobeys their decrees.
“It’s much more organized now,” said Corinne Dufka, a senior researcher on Mali for Human Rights Watch, referring to the network of courts and police. “The Islamists have taken away the joie de vivre of the people.”
On Oct. 9, Mariam Conate, 15, was walking to her uncle’s house in Timbuktu. She had forgotten to fully cover her face. Two Islamist police officers confronted her, and “one held me, the other beat me with the barrel of his gun,” Conate recalled. “They took me to their headquarters and threw me into a room. They locked the door and left.”
Outside, her jailors discussed her future. One wanted to cut off her ears as punishment. The other wanted to send her to a prison where six of her friends had been raped, she said. She was also worried that she would be forced to marry a militant, a fate her cousin had recently suffered.
“As I listened, I was trembling and crying,” Conate said.
U.N. and Malian officials said they have learned of many cases of rape and forced weddings by Islamist gunmen in the north. Two weeks ago, U.N. Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson told U.N. members that sexual violence is prevalent in the region.
Publicly, though, the Islamists have claimed moral righteousness, banning sex before marriage. In August, they stoned a couple to death after accusing them of adultery. Now the Islamists are systematically asking men and women who walk together whether they are married. In the town of Kidal, the Islamists are making lists of unmarried pregnant women in order to punish them and their partners, said U.N. and Malian human rights officials and local community leaders.
“They are going around asking every pregnant woman who made her pregnant,” said Alkaya Toure, an official with Cri de Coeur, a Malian human rights group. “They also rely on spies inside the populations in Gao, Timbuktu and elsewhere.”
But as a reward for loyalty, the Islamists have found a religious loophole. They have encouraged their fighters to marry women and girls, some as young as 10, and often at gunpoint. After sex, they initiate a quick divorce. In an extreme case that has shocked the country, a girl in Timbuktu was forced last month to “marry” six fighters in one night, according to a report in one of Mali’s biggest newspapers.
“They are abusing religion to force women and girls to have intercourse,” said Ibrahima Berte, an official at Mali’s National Commission for Human Rights. “This kind of forced marriage is really just sexual abuse.”
In a telephone interview, a senior Islamist commander conceded that his fighters were marrying young girls.
“Our religion says that if a girl is 12, she must get married to avoid losing her virginity in a wrong way,” said Oumar Ould Hamaha, the military leader of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa, one of the three radical groups ruling the north. The other two are al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the network’s North and West Africa affiliate; and Ansar Dine, or “defenders of the faith.”
Conate was eventually set free after a cousin who knew one of the Islamists intervened. On Oct. 12, she fled to Segou, where she stays with an aunt in a small, crowded house.
Boys, too, are being abused. With a possible war looming, some as young as 10 have been taken to training camps, where they learn to use weapons and plant homemade bombs, U.N. officials and human rights activists say. And as the economy worsens in rebel areas, some parents have “sold” their children as it becomes harder to buy food and to curry favor with the Islamists.
“They give $10 to impoverished parents to recruit their children in the name of defending Islam,” said Gaoussou Traore, the secretary general of Comade, a Malian children’s rights group. “The Islamists tell parents that their children will go to paradise, that they will benefit in the next world.”
Pro-government self-defense militias in the south, made up of civilians seeking to liberate the north, have also recruited children, activists say.
“The situation of children in Mali is normally very bad,” Traore said. “With the arrival of the Islamists, it’s become a lot worse.”‘They came to destroy us’
In a few parts of the north, the Islamists have been more lenient with the locals because they are from the same tribes. But Timbuktu is controlled by hard-liners from all three groups, particularly AQIM, which is largely made up of foreigners. There, the sharia codes have been fiercely enforced.
By some estimates, more than half the population of 60,000 has fled; a majority of the refugees in Segou and the capital, Bamako, are from Timbuktu, said Western refugee officials and community leaders.
But the price of escape has been steep. Maman Dedeou, a 22-year-old laborer, has no job in Bamako, where he lives with relatives who are also refugees. Like them, all he possesses are bitter memories.
“I just eat and sleep,” he said, raising his injured right arm, wrapped in a thick white bandage, as an explanation.
The extremists have not stopped at destroying ancient mausoleums and shrines in Timbuktu, which was an important center for Islamic learning 500 years ago. They have also targeted shop owners such as Moktar Ben Sidi, 50, who sold traditional masks and other items to Western tourists. One day, a group of Islamist fighters broke down his door and smashed everything, he said.
“They said such artifacts were forbidden under Islam,” Sidi said. “They didn’t come to help us. They came to destroy us.”
Inside his barbershop, Ali Maiga, 33, had a mural of hairstyles favored by American and French rappers on the wall. The Islamists sprayed white paint over it, he recalled, and warned him that he risks being whipped if he shaves off anyone’s beard.
Juddu Bojuama, 26, was thrown in jail, accused by the Islamist police of drinking a beer. He denials went unheard. “They beat me 100 times with a tree branch,” he said, pointing at his back and legs.
Dedeou, the laborer, suffered even more. He recalled having no lawyer when he stood before an Islamic judge on charges of stealing a mattress. Afterward, he said, police tied his arms and legs and took away his cellphone. They took him to a clearing near the Niger River, where a man gave him two injections that put him to sleep.
Dedeou woke up in a hospital. His right hand had been amputated.
An Islamist fighter, standing guard at his bedside, uttered a judgment that Dedeou said he could never forget:
“This is the punishment God has decided for you.”
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* For my English loyal blog visitors:
House Of Cards Premiere Screening
* I think this well could be possibly an unique achievement in the Mara clan. Two sisters showing tits in their respective flicks barely within a week. Kate Mara (almost 80% certainty to do her first frontal nudity) in House of Cards and on February 8, Rooney Mara (95%) will be riding topless in Side Effects (2013).
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What It's Like to Film a Sex Scene With Lindsay Lohan
'Canyons' co-star James Deen speaks
For someone who's posed in Playboy, Lindsay Lohan was surprisingly uncomfortable filming a four-way sex scene for The Canyons, her co-star James Deen reveals to the Daily Beast. "She’s never done a sex scene, so to her, this was a big deal that she was showing her boobs and simulating sex," but since everyone else on set was so relaxed about it, "she felt like she needed to throw some drama in there and bring attention back to her," Deen explains. While she was half-naked with two completely naked co-stars in bed, she suddenly made them put their robes back on because she was "really uncomfortable." But she was still topless, and when they asked her about it, "she was like, 'No! I can be naked but you can’t be!'" Deen continues.
"Everyone else on set was like, 'We’ve seen you in Playboy, we’ve seen crotch shots all over the Internet, so this is nothing new,' but to her, it was something different." He also confirms that she wanted the crew to strip down, but he denies that they actually did so (although he says the director did). Deen is surprisingly positive about Lohan throughout the interview, essentially cutting her a lot of slack because of her upbringing as a child star. He also confirms an anecdote in a New York Times profile that said in one violent scene Lohan wanted the director to actually slam her to the ground so she could feel the pain, and then there's this disturbing quote: "She said, 'No, it’s fine! I get bruised and hit all the time!'"
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VIDEO: Mercedes-Benz CLA-Class Short Film featuring American supermodel Karlie Kloss
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| MEG IMPERIAL: “When you say yes to a film, you should be willing to meet all the requirements, all the way.” |
Young actress Meg Imperial, who plays the lead role in the Joel Lamangan sexy drama “Menor de Edad,” learned three important things while working on the film, especially when she did her love scenes with costar Wendell Ramos.
“First is that you should be open-minded,” the 19-year-old told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
“Once you’ve agreed to do it, you should be willing to meet all the requirements, all the way.”
These were her first love scenes since she started acting more than four years ago.
Meg continued: “Second, you should be familiar with camera tricks that could be employed in executing sensitive scenes.”
Lastly, she said, “Be prepared to tap into your emotions. You must be able to express the right feelings in every scene. It would help if you are convinced that you are making a good film.”
Meg joined the biz as a commercial model at age 9. She appeared in TV shows “Ysabela,” “Maria Flor de Luna,” “Midnight DJ,” “My Driver Sweet Lover” “PO5,” “Bagets” and “Glamorosa.” She recently signed up as a talent of Viva Entertainment. “Menor de Edad” opens in theaters nationwide on Jan. 23.
How did you convince your parents to allow you to go sexy?
When I told my parents how good the material was, they gave me their blessing. I said I wouldn’t do frontal nudity or back exposure.
What was it like shooting your first love scene?
I was so nervous, partly because I did it with Kuya Wendell, who is older.
How did Wendell treat you?
Very gently. He told me that this was just work, and that actors have to do at least one love scene in their career.
You described this one as a “steamy” love scene.
It was really hot on the set and I was sweating. There were so many lights!
You also had a “rape” scene.
I prepared myself emotionally. The scene took so long to do and was quite violent. I did it with three actors; it helped that they were my friends. I was confident that they wouldn’t take advantage of me. We didn’t rehearse it, so it came out very real. When they strangled me, though, my fear was real, and so were the tears.
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Sundance 2013: Juno Temple sets the ground-rules in 'Afternoon Delight' -- EXCLUSIVE VIDEO
“Full-service sex worker,” she says in an exclusive video clip below. That about covers it.
“It’s not like McKenna is a tragedy,” says Temple, who researched the role the only way one can, by befriending a real-life professional from that world. “My character is not a woman who’s torn apart by her situation; she enjoys what she’s doing.”
Written and directed by Jill Soloway (The United States of Tara) and co-starring Jane Lynch and Annie Mumolo (Bridesmaids), Afternoon Delight has fun with some serious sexy scenarios. “It’s such a movie about women — different stages of women — with a younger girl and a slightly older women admiring things about each other and learning from each other,” says Temple. “But also ultimately kind of destroying each other.”
Click here for the video
Sundance Q-and-A: Juno Temple Is Blowing Up
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| "There's a couple other movies at Sundance that also show sex in a different way. That's exciting. I actually don't think women are being pigeonholed right now." |
Three of Temple movies are showing at this year's 2013 Sundance Film Festival, which starts today (Lovelace, Afternoon Delight, and Magic Magic). We talked to her about what movies she's most excited about, playing people who are nothing like her, being scrutinized online, and onscreen sex.
ESQUIRE.COM: I wanted to start by saying that I can't help but admire, I guess, the poise with which you seem to choose your roles. You've said they reflect your interest at any given moment. In a short span of time you've done very different roles, from Kaboom to Killer Joe. Are you interested in experimenting with what you can do?
JUNO TEMPLE: I think it's so exciting to try anything you possibly can. There's such an array of brilliant roles for young women. You read all these amazing young women going through different stages in their life — different stages, different fascinations, different textualities, different friendships. I have to say, I've definitely been in a trailer park for a little while recently... [Laughs.]
ESQ: It seems like you're being scrutinized very closely. I was browsing your IMDb, and your school grades are considered trivia. Do you block that out?
JT: I actually didn't know that. And can I be completely honest? I don't remember if I got two Bs and a C or two Cs and a B. I loved school. I love learning. I guess people want to talk about it. I can't control that. I try not to read that kind of stuff. If people want to criticize a performance, that I understand. I think that's important. What's going on with this industry now is crazy. That obsession with celebrity is madness. I try as hard as I can not to read that stuff. Because most of the time it's a bit... factual. And it's frustrating because it's not about what you're setting out to do as an actor.
ESQ: I want to talk a bit more about Killer Joe. The funny thing about your character is you have to allow yourself to be manipulated by the other characters. How do you say to yourself, Sure, I'll be duped?
JT: For me, a director is such an important part of that process. I really have to trust them. Because then you can kind of let your inhibitions down. You can go anywhere when you trust someone. [Director] William Friedkin is a genius. He truly is. We talked a lot about Dottie. Her family, they pretend she's this little angel that doesn't really understand what's going on, and they want to protect her. And then Killer Joe comes along, and he looks at her like she's a woman, and that's very exciting for her. She wants to play with dolls and she wants to have a love affair. William always said that Killer Joe is her weird Prince Charming. And he truly is. I love that.
ESQ: Your roles have dealt with sex in very different ways. In all these roles for young women you're coming across, are you seeing any recurring attitude about sex?
JT: Sex is going to be complicated because people are either going to be offended by it or they're gong to enjoy it. It doesn't really affect me, but I think there are so many unmaiden roles for women. I've been lucky enough to play girls with lots of different attitudes about sex. There's a couple other movies at Sundance that also show sex in a different way. That's exciting. I actually don't think women are being pigeonholed right now, and I like that. It's showing that men and women — when it comes down to it, we're animals, aren't we? I know how my next-door neighbors feel about it, and I hope they're enjoying it.
ESQ: Is it frustrating at all, then, when your movie Jack and Diane is being pigeonholed as "the lesbian werewolf movie"?
JT: But see, when I read that script, what I felt was the idea of young love. It didn't matter whether it was two women, two men, or a man and a woman. When you're first in love with somebody, and it's not true love, it's borderline obsession, it's kind of like an addiction. You switch into this weird, weird part of your mind when you just can't live without that person. And you want to envelop them. You want them flowing through your veins. That was how I perceived that project.
ESQ: What makes you sign on to a role?
JT: I have to connect with the director and the director has to connect with me. Otherwise, you won't ultimately get what you want from each other. And I think it's about passion. It's about wanting to play that character, whatever way I have to play. Whether it's today. Whether it's six weeks. Whether it's two months. Whatever it is, I have to really, really want to be that person for that amount of time. I have to do her justice. That was the advice my father [director Julien Temple] gave to me, and I will stick by that until the day I die.
SA: What do you think when you see yourself onscreen? Do you look at the dailies?
JT: I actually don't normally look at dailies. What's exciting about watching a movie, when it's finished, is you sometimes you don't recognize yourself, and that's when I'm really proud. And then sometimes I sit there and I'm like, Oh, Juno, what? But you learn what you don't like when you're doing it and what you do like when you're doing it. And I really, really, really, really want to keep doing this. So I'm constantly learning.
ESQ: One of your upcoming projects I'm especially interested in is Horns, which is about Daniel Radcliffe waking up with horns in his head. What attracted you to that?
JT: I met with Alex [Alexandre Aja], the director, and I sat and talked with him for quite a long time, actually. I absolutely loved speaking with him. And I was shooting a film called Maleficent in London and my agent called me and said, "We had something come up, and they want you to do the movie." The thing I thought was so interesting about that script is you can't pinpoint it into a specific genre. It's sci-fi, it's a love story, it's a horror film, it's a magic film, it's a fairy tale. I'm excited to see the end of it. I have no idea what that's gong to become in the final cut. But I know that Alex's vision is extraordinary. I know he can tear the fucking shit out of people. That movie was a trip for me because we were always shooting at nighttime. So I felt like a night creature. I felt like an owl. It was crazy.
ESQ: To close things out, I'm wondering, is there one role of yours so far you look at and say, "This is the best of me"?
JT: I was pretty blown away when I first saw Killer Joe, because I am so different from myself in that movie. And that was something I was so proud of. That level of stripping yourself that bad? All of that was a serious challenge. Thank you so much for commenting on diversity, because that's something I strive for. I really want to be a chameleon.
S#!% you should see
Lawsuit Claims Dancing in a Topless Bar "Improves the Self Esteem" of the Stripper
Seeks to have San Antonio's strict new strip club law thrown out, also claims stripping is a 'socially fulfilling experience.'
Jim Forsyth
Several San Antonio strip clubs today filed a federal lawsuit against the City of San Antonio, claiming that the new restrictions placed on sexually oriented businesses by City Council last month amount to unconstitutional restrictions on free speech.
"For many years now, the Supreme Court has found that exotic dances is protected by the first amendment," Attorney Luke Lirot tells 1200 WOAI's Micahel Board.
City Council tightened up restrictions on who qualifies as a sexually oriented business, how much skin must be covered up, and tightened zoning regulations for the operations.
"Such enforcement eliminates, prevents, chills and or discourages and ultimately totally restrains Plaintiffs from owning, operating and participating in the presentation of constitutionally protected free speech in the form of dance performances, now arbitrarily banned in San Antonio," the lawsuit reads.
The seven topless clubs which filed the lawsuit claim that 'the presentation of expressive dance performances is a beneficial social activity which creates an improved self image for the dancer and joy and entertainment for the beholder. The plaintiffs consider the appreciation of the human body, an integral component of the exotic dance performances described herein, which exhibit the socially accepted and or popular contemporary concepts of physical ability and attractiveness a socially fulfilling experience for both performers and patrons.'
The lawsuit also challenges the basic premise of the new regulations, that they were needed because sexually oriented businesses increase crime and reduce property values.
"The operation of the businesses has not caused decreases in property values, increases in criminal activity, or the acceleration of urban blight."
The law is also challenged as being discriminatory to immigrants, because a person is required to show 'a valid and lawful photographic identification card that was issued by a governmental authority of the United States,' meaning foreign residents are barred from the industry.
The lawsuit demands that the new regulations be thrown out, and the strip clubs be awarded damages 'for the deprivation of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment' in an amount to be determined by the court.
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"For many years now, the Supreme Court has found that exotic dances is protected by the first amendment," Attorney Luke Lirot tells 1200 WOAI's Micahel Board.
City Council tightened up restrictions on who qualifies as a sexually oriented business, how much skin must be covered up, and tightened zoning regulations for the operations.
"Such enforcement eliminates, prevents, chills and or discourages and ultimately totally restrains Plaintiffs from owning, operating and participating in the presentation of constitutionally protected free speech in the form of dance performances, now arbitrarily banned in San Antonio," the lawsuit reads.
The seven topless clubs which filed the lawsuit claim that 'the presentation of expressive dance performances is a beneficial social activity which creates an improved self image for the dancer and joy and entertainment for the beholder. The plaintiffs consider the appreciation of the human body, an integral component of the exotic dance performances described herein, which exhibit the socially accepted and or popular contemporary concepts of physical ability and attractiveness a socially fulfilling experience for both performers and patrons.'
The lawsuit also challenges the basic premise of the new regulations, that they were needed because sexually oriented businesses increase crime and reduce property values.
"The operation of the businesses has not caused decreases in property values, increases in criminal activity, or the acceleration of urban blight."
The law is also challenged as being discriminatory to immigrants, because a person is required to show 'a valid and lawful photographic identification card that was issued by a governmental authority of the United States,' meaning foreign residents are barred from the industry.
The lawsuit demands that the new regulations be thrown out, and the strip clubs be awarded damages 'for the deprivation of rights guaranteed by the First Amendment' in an amount to be determined by the court.
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Sundance Film: “Emanuel And The Truth About Fishes” New Clip
A new film clip from Francesca Gregorini’s “Emanuel And The Truth About Fishes” starring Jessica Biel, Kaya Scodelario, Alfred Molina, Frances O’Connor, and Aneurin Barnard debuted on Hitfix yesterday. The film will premiere at this week’s Sundance Film Festival.EMANUEL AND THE TRUTH ABOUT FISHES is a hyperstylized and often darkly humorous film that vacillates between surrealism and realism while it incorporates suspenseful drama. Writer/director Francesca Gregorini’s tightly constructed script fuses pain with poetry and explores the complexity of being complicit in the lives of our loved ones. In a breakout performance, Kaya Scodelario is the heart of the film as Emanuel, who must take a courageous journey to enter her dream and help extract Linda from hers.
Screenings:
- Friday, January 18, 2013 at 5:30pm- Library Center Theatre- Premiere
- Saturday, January 19, 2013 at 11:30am- Holiday Village Cinema 1- Press and Industry Screening #1
- Saturday, January 19, 2013 at 9:30pm- Peery’s Egyptian Theater, Ogden – Public Screening #2
- Sunday, January 20, 2013 at 9:15pm- Salt Lake City Library Theatre- Public Screening #3
- Monday, January 21, 2013 at 11:30am- Library Center Theatre- Public Screening #4
- Wednesday, January 23, 2013 at 12:15pm- Eccles Theatre- Public Screening #5
- Friday, January 25, 2013 at 8:30am- MARC- Public Screening #6
* I wish I had someone to scout out the nudity at Sundance the way Mr. Skin does it. Someone to provide intricate details of sex and nudity to keep us warm and fuzzy all over while waiting for the official release. There will be some underwater scenes with Kaya so keep your fingers crossed for see-through moments. I contacted Francesca via Vimeo personal message inquiring about the movie (what the final rating will be) and totally forgetting I had nude vids under my own account. She probably thinks I'm a perv. I did send a grovelling apology; that I was recovering film nudoholic (the exact words). Was trying to be charming. Again my memory failed me. Francesca is a muff diver.
Sundance 2013: 5 Faces to Watch
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| Kaya Scodelario in "Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes" |
You don't know their names yet, but established stars beware: These newcomers could upstage you.
This story first appeared in the Jan. 25 issue of The Hollywood Reporter magazine.1. Kaya Scodelario
Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes
The actress, 20, already familiar to British audiences for her role as Effy Stonem on Channel 4's Skins, is said to knock it out of the park as a troubled girl who becomes preoccupied with a mysterious new neighbor bearing a striking resemblance to her dead mother in writer-director Francesca Gregorini's film.
2. David Lowery
Ain't Them Bodies Saints
All of the buzz surrounding the writer-director's bleak, U.S. drama competition title, starring Rooney Mara and Casey Affleck as an outlaw couple on the run, is sweet revenge for the Texan. His previous film, 2009's St. Nick, was turned down by Sundance (it instead screened at SXSW).
3. Kathryn Hahn
Afternoon Delight
Long relegated to sidekick and cameo roles in such films as Our Idiot Brother and Step Brothers, Hahn, 38, seizes the spotlight in the dark comedy, another entry in the U.S. dramatic competition. Jill Soloway directs her in the role of a well-to-do mother who takes home a stripper (Juno Temple) whom she attempts to save.
4. Danai Gurira
Mother of George
The 34-year-old actress, best known as the fierce, sword-wielding Michonne on AMC hit The Walking Dead, is garnering heat for her turn as a fertility challenged African immigrant desperately trying to save her marriage in Andrew Dosunmu's U.S. drama submission.
5. Miles Teller
The Spectacular Now
All grown up since his supporting turn opposite Nicole Kidman in Rabbit Hole, the 25-year-old stars in James Ponsoldt's coming-of-age film, in the U.S. dramatic competition, as a budding alcoholic who strikes up a relationship with a classmate (Shailene Woodley).
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With Lindsay Lohan as its star, how could The Canyons possibly go wrong?
Squabbling, random nudity, porn and rage … If the tales coming off the set are true, the troubled star's latest movie could be her most deranged yet
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| Lindsay Lohan: admits she probably was 'a pain in the ass on set' during the filming of erotic thriller The Canyons. |
So we shouldn't be surprised by how terrible this year's likely winners are. But really, Silver Linings Playbook? The movie that makes Rain Man look like a brutally realistic depiction of mental illness? Please.
Yet while Harvey Weinstein may have bullied, bought and bagged the Academy Awards, Hollywood hasn't wholly lost its fun. Sure, in the main the movies today are grandiose epics, faux indie "I love you too, Mom" cringefests or indentikit "comedies" in which men act like three-year-olds. But the unexpected can still happen, even in a town so obsessed with commercialism and fearful of risk that it sees Ben Affleck as a maverick outsider.
Happily, what is clearly going to be the most amazingly deranged film since Joe Eszterhas's Hearts of Fire – which co-starred the natural duo of Rupert Everett and Bob Dylan – creeps ever closer to release. This film spits in the eye of test audiences and generic comedies, and it could be a delicious parody of the hidden narcissism, delusion and hysteria that lie behind most movies. Not in the case of this film, though, and this film is The Canyons.
The Canyons is directed by acclaimed screenwriter Paul Schrader, a man so neurotic he used to sleep with a gun under his pillow. It is written by the novelist-turned-internet troll Bret Easton Ellis; and stars a porn actor named James Deen and Lindsay Lohan, a young woman who has a criminal record longer than her CV: How Could Anything Go Wrong?
This is what movie-making should be like, people – wild, weird and completely crazy. And judging from the clip of the film released this week in which Lohan spends several minutes looking for her mobile phone, this movie may well be the new The Room, the notoriously awful/amazing 2003 film. Bugger the Oscars. LIS is firmly #Teamcanyons.
Just as this movie has restored LiS's faith in an industry that insists on casting Gerard Butler, it has also restored our faith in American film journalism. Last week, the New York Times ran a brilliant report from the set of The Canyons that almost makes up for Esquire's interview with Megan Fox this month. In it, the writer describes what it's like to be on a set with Lohan, which turns out to be exactly what you think being on a set with Lohan must be like. At one point Schrader fires Lohan after she fails to show up for the first two days. Lohan's response is to track down Schrader to his hotel, bang on every single door until she finds him and then sit outside his room sobbing for 90 minutes. Schrader re-hires her, which just goes to prove LiS's longstanding belief that, when in doubt, ask oneself: "What would Lindsay Lohan do?"
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| Lindsay Lohan not yelling at James Deen, in a scene from The Canyons. |
Lohan has allegedly confirmed that the article was "pretty accurate" and that she probably was a "pain in the ass on set". So much so, that someone from the set has apparently leaked audio of Lohan yelling at Deen during filming, telling him to "do his fucking job". Seeing as Deen is a porn star, that instruction could well have been taken literally.
Furthermore, tmz.com is reporting that the producers of the film are blaming Lohan for the film's rejection by the Sundance film festival as Lohan might be a "turn-off" for its audience. Deen, on the other hand, told tmz that he didn't care "because it coincides with AVN [the porn awards]. Priorities, man!!!!" And it's Lohan who is seen as the downmarket one here.
Divas, squabbling, random nudity, heartbreak, addiction, porn, rage, passion, miscarriages of justice, a heroine, bad guys: I don't know about The Canyons, but the making of The Canyons sounds like the best movie ever. Who, seriously, would rather see Les Misérables over this?
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