For costume designer Susan Matheson, finding inspiration for the vintage T-shirts Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly wear throughout "Step Brothers" wasn't hard; the challenge was picking the right ones. "We wanted to distinguish their characters as being 40 years old stuck in childhood without making them look insane." Luckily, she had a wide selection to choose from -- the South African-born Matheson has long harbored an obsession with Americana, collecting enough vintage T-shirts over the years to fill a 400-square-foot private storage space. For many of her selections, it was a matter of digging into the archives and hand-making several copies. To find the 15 T-shirts seen throughout the movie, she started out with somewhere between 100 and 200 T-shirts and whittled it down from there. One personal favorite -- Reilly's black T with Converse sneakers hanging around the neck -- was not a favorite of the filmmakers. "The director thought it was too childish. Everyone thought it was hideous. But I was like a tenacious dog with a bone with that T-shirt." It was debated for months. Finally, she won. "From the screenings I've gone to, people tell me that's the T-shirt they want."
Rockstar magician and illusionist Criss Angel variously calls the event his “most challenging escape ever” and “the most dangerous thing I have attempted in my career” -– a stunt in which he’ll flee a building set for destruction and rigged with hundreds of pounds of explosives before 4,500 tons of concrete come barreling down on top of him.
Handcuffed to a seventh-floor balcony, the Sin City sensation will have just three minutes and 30 seconds to get through a series of locked doors and climb three flights of stairs to the roof. His salvation: a helicopter hovering above with a dangling 30-foot ladder. The event will be broadcast live at 7 tonight on “Mindfreak,” Angel’s popular A&E show.
Just days before making his way to Florida for the “demonstration” (the New Jersey-born 41-year-old feels it cheapens things to call them “tricks”), Angel sat down with a reporter before a taping of “The Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson” to answer a few questions about the building escape -– but, more importantly, its affect on his new Cirque du Soleil-produced show, “Criss Angel: Believe,” which cost a reported $100 million to produce. "Believe" premieres at Las Vegas’ Luxor Resort Hotel and Casino in October.
No amount of photo scandals and catty videos seem to be hurting Miley Cyrus' sales potential. The teen star debuted at No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts Wednesday morning with the strongest showing of her career. Billboard has her "Breakout" selling 371,000 copies, a tally that's strong enough to give Miley the second-biggest debut by a female artist in 2008.
Only Mariah Carey fared better, selling 463,000 copies in her debut week. To put Miley's total in perspective, her "Hannah Montana 2/Meet Miley Cyrus" opened at No. 1 last year with 326,000 copies, but that album was directly tied into her Disney Channel series and tour, whereas "Breakout" is a standalone Miley affair.
While the tween market is certainly one not to be taken lightly, Cyrus fared better than much-hyped 2008 releases from Madonna and Janet Jackson, respectively. Madonna's "Hard Candy" sold 280,000 copies when it debuted earlier this year, and Janet came in with 181,000 copies back in March.
The headlines came at what is perceived to be a crucial time for the young star. Cyrus has hinted that "Hannah Montana" may be nearing the end of its run, and "Breakout" is pegged as the album that could catapult Cyrus out of the teen-pop world. First-week sales usually bring out the die-hards, but thus far, fans don't appear to be turned off by any of Cyrus' non-music or off-screen exploits.
Tuesday's earthquake didn’t last longer than 15 seconds,
but it was enough to send some in Hollywood shaking.
At the “Big Brother” house in Studio City, the
tremors sent the houseguests on CBS’s reality series running for the “backyard”;
the house is built inside a soundstage. Because “Big Brother” cast members
aren’t allowed any communication with the outside world, producers informed them
of the earthquake over a PA.
“A lot of them are not from California, so this is
the first earthquake they’ve experienced,” says series executive producer
Allison Grodner. “Everyone was a bit shaken.”
But cameras never stopped taping. The show airs live
online 24 hours a day. “We made sure they felt safe. But they went back to
business right after,” she said, explaining that they’ve still got to decide who
next to eliminate on Wednesday’s episode.
“Sunset Tan” sales rep and cast member Holly
Huddleston was stuck in a tanning booth when things started to vibrate during an
FHM photo shoot promoting the E! series.
“I was in nothing but a bra and panties and wearing
these high heels when everything started shaking,” Huddleston said. “I kind of
stopped and looked around to see if it was just me, if I was the one shaking or
if I was just positioned funny.
“But then I saw the photographer shaking and all the
lights shaking,” she said. “It was scary.”
-- Staff report
Photo: Cast of "Big Brother 10" television reality series, courtesy CBS.
The next James Bond film has its theme song. Jack White and Alicia Keys have tag-teamed to record "Another Way to Die" for the November release "Quantum of Solace,"the second Bond flick to feature Daniel Craigin the lead role.
It had been speculated for a few weeks that Keys would be tapped to the perform the song, and now she has a drummer. White will provide the rhythm for the cut and serve as its writer-producer, confirmed in a release today from Columbia Pictures. "Another Way to Die" is hyped as the first duet for a Bond film.
White and Keys are the latest Americans to tackle a main Bond song, following Chris Cornell, who did "You Know My Name" for "Casino Royale" in 2006. And like the latter, "Another Way to Die" will be one of the rare Bond theme songs to not actually feature the name of the movie in the title.
The announcement brings to end months of speculation as to who would sing the latest Bond theme. Rumors earlier this year had Amy Winehouse doing the honors, but her producer-collaborator Mark Ronson declared her "not ready." Newcomer Leona Lewis had also been rumored to be in the running.
The soundtrack to "Quantum of Solace" will be released by J Records, Keys' record label, on Oct. 28.
Everyone has had the experience of disagreeing with a critic, but do critics ever second-guess themselves? We asked Calendar’s critics whether there are any reviews they regret. One in a series of occasional articles.
Since 1976, I have enjoyed the music of Philip Glass. Before then, I did not. “Einstein on the Beach” changed everything.
Experiencing the five-hour opera with its repetitious score performed without a break, no real text and a staging by Robert Wilson full of unforgettable images may not have been the full-blown religious conversion for me that it had been to some. But thanks to “Einstein,” I did, so to speak, see the light. And, more importantly, hear the light.
This was a dogmatic time in music. Power was in the hands of Modernists who believed that music should never repeat, that it should provide ever-fresh experiences, that it should change as fast as the world was. The young Minimalists demanded a beat and a groove.
I was committed to change. I was enthusiastic about such Minimalists as Steve Reich and Terry Riley who could create fascinating, unpredictable results from copious amounts of repetition. But not Glass. His performances were for me intolerably loud and mind-numbing. The unkind word that I loudly trumpeted back then for this work was “fascistic.” I felt Glass went beyond intriguing the mind — he messed with it.
“Einstein on the Beach” was not, for Glass, a radical break from his past. His music evolved from its mathematically hard-core cyclic modules of the ’60s to something that made room for the ingratiating melody, harmonic invention and lyricism that gradually entered into his style after “Einstein.” But Wilson’s theater, and particularly his inspired lighting, literally opened my ears. It was as if he turned on the light switch, and I could, for the first time, hear.
The importance: The diva has been missing from the pop landscape since 2003, when she released a holiday-themed collection. Much of the singer's headlines over the last few years have been more of the tabloid nature, focusing on health issues and her marriage to Bobby Brown. But the public loves a good comeback, as evidenced by Mariah Carey and her "The Emancipation of Mimi." A new Whitney album -- one that's not embarrassing -- would surely ascend to blockbuster status in a matter of weeks, if not days. Indeed, it's not just the Sony BMG brass who would likely be hungry for some new Whitney content. Just check the success that met Leona Lewis, and her Whitney-influenced smash "Bleeding Love."
The verdict: "Like I Never Left," featuring production and a collaboration from Akon, is as much an Akon song as it is a Whitney cut. As such, its mission isn't so much to be a knockout, but to reestablish Whitney as a contemporary artist, even featuring some electronically-manipulated vocals from Akon. But while that's one of the song's more distressing qualities (the other is Akon feeling the need to announce who is singing the song at its start), it doesn't fully distract from what is ultimately an effortlessly light R&B cut. As feather-light as the song is, Houston still sounds pretty good, even though she has nothing to say. If anything, the song definitely doesn't need Akon. Houston is cool, assertive and matter-of-fact, bringing a level of personality to the standard that's absent in the ho-hum lyrics. Akon's production is cheesy-smooth, lacking any sense of grandeur, and putting Houston on par with Mariah.
Is it finished? According to a spokeswoman for Houston, no, the song that was leaked out is not "a finished song at all." But as to when it was recorded and if it will be finished? No comment.
Does this mean an album is coming soon? "Yes your girl is coming back," Houston sings in the song, but don't bet on it, at least not anytime soon. The much-discussed return of Whitney has been years in the making, and a new album has been promised to be on the horizon dating back to 2005. In February of this year, then-J Records head Clive Davis said at his pre-Grammy bash that a new Whitney album would be coming soon, but we've heard that promise before. And Fox's Roger Friedman reports that a new Whitney album is "not nearly ready."
How to find it: Google "Whitney Houston" + YouTube + "Like I Never Left."
Sally Field, who won an Oscar for her role as a fiery union leader in the 1979 movie "Norma Rae," isn’t feeling much solidarity with the leadership of the Screen Actors Guild.
Field has thrown her support behind a group of dissident actors who are mounting an election challenge to SAG President Alan Rosenberg and the political group known as Membership First that swept control of the board nearly three years ago.
"In the 43 years I’ve been a member, I’ve never before doubted our union’s leadership ... but recent actions of the Hollywood board have destroyed my faith," Field wrote in an open letter to SAG members.
Her missive was not unexpected, given the bad blood between her and Rosenberg. In January, the pair got in a kerfuffle at the end of a SAG Awards dinner when Field, star of the ABC drama "Brothers & Sisters," pressed Rosenberg to fast-track negotiations and questioned his leadership. Later, she and other high-profile actors, including George Clooney, grilled Rosenberg and SAG executive director Doug Allen about getting negotiations underway.
Meanwhile, Membership First is lining up its own share of high-profile backers and candidates to run for the national board.
So count on many more dueling letters from celebrities as they take sides in an election that could chart the future course of Hollywood’s largest, if most dysfunctional, union.
-- Richard Verrier
Photo: Sally Field as Norma Rae. Credit: Associated Press.
"The Dark Knight's" new Batpod is a bike so outrageous it's hard to believe it was even built -- not just because it is tricked out with grappling hooks, cannons and machine guns. The front and rear tires are monstrously huge, and the engines are in the hubs of each wheel. The bike also has no handlebars. Instead, it has shields that fit each arm like sleeves and can rotate around the bike's frame, so the driver steers with his arms and shoulders rather than his hands.
The man behind the machine's design is Nathan Crowley, who created its predecessor for "Batman Begins." But it was Chris Corbould who built the beast.
Director "Chris Nolan and Nathan went for the look of it rather than thinking about the mechanics," Corbould said in an interview with The Times last year. "That was the biggest challenge: Get their vision, but make it work and perform."
Well, they've certainly done something right. The Batpod is featured in several key action sequences in the film, which pulled in a tremendous $158.3 million at the box office in its three-day opening weekend -- the biggest such total to date.
Everyone has had the experience of disagreeing with a critic, but do critics ever second-guess themselves? We asked Calendar’s critics whether there are any reviews they regret. One in a series of occasional articles.
This is a question that comes up a lot when you review films for a living, and, like the dreaded “What’s your favorite movie?” it never fails to incite violent fantasies. Not because I have or haven’t ever revisited a movie and entertained second thoughts (though not exactly in the way I think the question implies, but more on that later) but because of what the question says about the way we think now about movies, critics, reading, writing and cultural discourse.
Of course, I’m probably reading too much into it. You would too if you were accused of being “out of touch” with audiences every time you found yourself underwhelmed by some overhyped tent pole. I see a lot of overhyped tent poles, and, believe me, sometimes an actual tent pole would be more fun to watch.
During the last year, for instance, I found myself going back and forth a little on“Juno” and “Knocked Up,” both of which contained elements I admired and elements I didn’t. I tried to express both feelings in my reviews but wondered later if I’d tilted too much to one side. It’s not that I changed my mind about the movies so much as I waffled on the function of the review: I tend to see them not as recommendations or warnings but more as part of a conversation with readers about what the pop culture we produce says about the times we live in. But the trend lately leans toward the former.
That’s why there’s a small part of me that’s relieved when it doesn’t fall to me to review a movie such as, say, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” which arrived in theaters so shrouded in reverence it’s a wonder we didn’t all choke to death while waiting for the smoke to clear and dust to settle. As critics, it’s our job to see through the smoke and dust, but it isn’t always easy to trust your gut when marketing, pedigree and expectation obscure the view so thoroughly, creating the illusion of success and popularity before a movie has been released. It works the other way around too. Some movies get hit with a backlash before they even premiere, so that praising them can feel like going out on a dangerous limb.
Since 1976, I have enjoyed the music of Philip Glass. Before then, I did not. “Einstein on the Beach” changed everything.
This is a question that comes up a lot when you review films for a living, and, like the dreaded “What’s your favorite movie?” it never fails to incite violent fantasies. Not because I have or haven’t ever revisited a movie and entertained second thoughts (though not exactly in the way I think the question implies, but more on that later) but because of what the question says about the way we think now about movies, critics, reading, writing and cultural discourse. 
