James Franco & Anne Hathaway “Grease” It Up! Watch The Video

When I first heard that James Franco and Anne Hathaway were going to co-host the Oscars this year, my first thought was, “Oh boy, borefest!”

But, I admit, the two have grown on me since partly due to the Oscar promo video and I am looking forward to watching their antics this Sunday.
Adding hype to their upcoming Sunday co-hosting duties, Franco tweeted a short video on Wednesday which features the two reenacting the final scene of Grease
Although there is no dialogue on the clip, the two certainly look the part of Sandy and Danny. There is no explanation on whether this clip is prepared for the Oscars or not, but my guess is, a big yes! 
Watch the clip for yourself:

Oscars Best Actor Nominees Attend Luncheon – Photos

Nominees for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for the 83rd Academy Awards attended the Oscar Nominees Luncheon in Beverly Hills Monday, February 7, 2011.

Photo credit: Todd Wawrychuk / ©A.M.P.A.S.
 Pictured here (left to right): Javier Bardem, James Franco, Jesse Eisenberg, Colin Firth, and Jeff Bridges. Academy Awards for outstanding film achievements of 2010 will be presented on Sunday, February 27, 2011.

Vanity Fair’s Hollywood Issue Features “The Most Exciting Actors Of The Moment”

For its17th annual Vanity Fair Hollywood Issue, the magazine got together some of Hollywood’s biggest celebs for a three-page foldout cover shot by Norman Jean Roy.

If you are on CelebMagnet’s homepage, click on “Read More” below to see the full three-page cover..

Upcoming Oscar hosts Anne Hathaway and James Franco are featured on the cover as are pretty boys Jake Gyllenhaal and Ryan Reynolds.

The magazine decided to go “back to the basics – no teenagers, no penguins, no (full-on) nudity, just the most exciting actors and actresses of the moment.”

Other stars on the cover include newly-cast Spider-man Andrew Garfield, Jennifer Lawrence, Anthony Mackie, Olivia Wilde, Jesse Eisenberg, Mila Kunis, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Rashida Jones, Garrett Hedlund, Noomi Rapace, and Robert Duvall.

Vanity Fair‘s fashion and style director Jessica Diehl said: “We wanted to evoke the glamour of 1930s Shanghai, an era of smoky, alluring elegance. We had the gentlemen looking dashing in black tie, whilst the ladies were radiant in spring’s gowns – from Gucci to Yves Saint Laurent – and glittering with diamonds from Chanel and other arbiters of glamour.”



The issue hits newsstands February 3 in New York and Los Angeles and then nationally on February 8.

ABC Releases Oscar Promo Video Of Anne Hathaway & James Franco

Show a little boob (ok, A LOT of boob) and cut your arm off in a movie and you get to host the biggest award show of the year.

Call me cynical, but I think that’s why Anne Hathaway and James Franco got the gig of a lifetime each to co-host this years’ Academy Awards.

Don’t hate me for stating the obvious.

Regardless of what I think, ABC just released its first promo photo of Hathaway and Franco and released a promo video clip showing how funny the two can be together. 

I need more convincing than this video:

James Franco Admits He Watched Live Man-On-Man Sex As Part Of His Acting Research

Call me old fashioned. Or call me a cynic. But I just think some actors use “researching a role” as an excuse to downplay some of the questionable activities they engage in while in pursuit of their “art.”

Take what James Franco told James Lipton during an interview for Inside the Actors Studio for example. Franco spoke of the time when, researching a role, he actually ended up watching a gigolo have sex with a man. In person.

“I found this guy that was kind of a perfect model,” Franco explained. “He claimed to service both males and females. He took me on one of his jobs.”

At the time, Franco was researching the role of a male prostitute which he was to play in 2002’s Sonny. So he followed the real-life male gigolo role model into a strip club to talk and things went in a different direction than Franco says he had planned.

The gigolo’s friend came over to them and said, ” ‘Oh, you wanna play a prostitute? You want some real research? Then come with us.'” Franco continued: “It went down. Everything went down, as you see in the movies and hear about. The eerie thing is, it was like a movie, but it wasn’t a movie. It was the real thing, happening in front of me.”

I don’t know–I just don’t buy it. If it were really eerie, couldn’t he just have walked away and sacrificed his research instead of staying and risk becoming a mere voyeur? I mean, really, how much real-life experience was needed anyway for Sonny, a Rated-R movie? I now wonder what Julia Roberts had to do to prepare for her role in Pretty Woman. To each his own I guess.
Watch Franco tell the whole story himself and tell me what you think.


Eat Pray Love With Julia Roberts: Movie Review

MOVIE REVIEW.

  When I first heard that Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, Eat Pray Love, was being adapted for film, the first thought that ran in my mind was, “How could that book be made into a movie?” The book seemed too big for a single movie. I thought, perhaps a mini-series could encapsulate all that is required to fully tell the whole tale, but not one movie. Also, for me, the most interesting parts of the book are Elizabeth’s honestly-raw yet oft-humorous introspections and thoughts and I just couldn’t imagine how thoughts could translate well on film without producing one hell of a dull movie.

When I found out Julia Roberts was cast as the main character of Elizabeth, my interest was piqued, so, I looked forward to seeing the movie despite my initial hesitation.

Eat Pray Love opens this Friday but I had the chance to view the film early at a screening tonight. As I had feared, Ryan Murphy’s film adaption of the book is flawed, at best. The short synopsis of my review before I give away spoilers is: You should not see this movie if you do not L-O-V-E Julia Roberts or if you have not read the book. As to the former, Julia is the only saving grace in this extremely prolonged movie–her natural charisma and charm are the only reasons I don’t say run and run fast away from this movie. But even she cannot make this movie good given its many flaws. As to the latter, if you have not read the book, you just won’t get what happens in the US, Italy and India. You all will probably enjoy the scenes in Bali, but then again, that doesn’t justify seeing the movie in its entirety.

(Spoilers ahead.) The parts of the book which made the reader relate to Elizabeth on any level are entirely absent on film. Gone is any explanation of the breakdown of the marriage between Elizabeth and her husband, Stephen (played by Billy Crudup) or the prolonged struggle Elizabeth experienced before abandoning her marriage. There is no mention of the fact that Stephen wanted to start a family and Elizabeth’s repulsion of the idea. There is no talk of both partners having witnessed the breakdown of Elizabeth into a “madwoman” or that they had been “fighting and crying” or that they had “the eyes of refugees.” They are simply shown as a normal couple, living the high life in NYC until Elizabeth decided to leave Stephen.

Also painfully absent is any intensity, addiction, passion or heartache experienced with her boyfriend, David (played by James Franco).  If you see the movie without having read the book, you will not understand why Elizabeth leaves this relationship either. She just looks like a shallow, pleasure-seeking, escapist.


Other major themes of the book are entirely stricken. You are never told that Elizabeth got an advance for her book and that is how she paid for the year-long trip or that she practiced celibacy on purpose on her trip to self-discovery.  Like the major events in the States, the ones in Italy and India are equally rushed and glossed over. What’s worse is that the movie lacked spirituality which is the underlying theme of the book.

At this point, I am running out of steam of how else to convince you that this movie is not very good – I think this movie sucked my energy. So, I will leave you with: See it if you love Julia or have read the book. Otherwise, go see something else.



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