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Avoid 'Prom Night' At All Costs (And Other Helpful Tips For Your Weekend at the Movies)

STV — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 16:00:00 EDT

Welcome to Defamer Attractions, a new feature previewing the latest, greatest and thoroughly misadventurous in weekend moviegoing. We'll be breaking the next three days into a few key categories, including a basic rundown of "What's New," flops-to-be in "The Big Loser," one worthy indie in "The Underdog," and, "For Shut-Ins," a quick look at highlights among new DVD's. Our opinions are our own, but they're impeccable and as close to exact science as Defamer gets. We hope you'll check in weekly!

WHAT'S NEW: Slim pickings, to be sure. The latest entry in the stultifying End-of-Ideas canon, the PG-13 slasher remake Prom Night is set to take the sluggish weekend with what most observers are predicting as a $14 million weekend in wide release. The only other release set to crack the top five is the Keanu Reeves cop-bomb Street Kings, which is tanking at Rotten Tomatoes as we speak and should top out between $10-$11 million. Also opening: the Ellen Page/Thomas Haden Church/Dennis Quaid comedy Smart People; the octogenarian-punk-choir doc Young@Heart; and an English-language version of France's Oscar-nominated animated film Persepolis, with voice contributions from Catherine Deneuve and Sean Penn.

THE BIG LOSER: Surprise hit 21 will no doubt slow down in its third week, but few recent releases will hit a wall as violently as George Clooney's Leatherheads. Poor word-of-mouth from reviews and a third-place finish on opening weekend will yield a poisonous turnout of no more than $6 million, mostly from Renee Zellweger obsessives eager for a second look after enjoying her hijinks at the London premiere.

THE UNDERDOG: After recent, high-profile berths at the Toronto and Sundance Film Festivals, the tiny ensemble drama The Visitor finally arrives in theaters. Directed by Tom McCarthy (The Station Agent), the film features Six Feet Under veteran Richard Jenkins as an emotionally withdrawn college professor who finds a Middle Eastern stranger crashing in his New York apartment. The "visitor," an illegal immigrant, teaches our mild-mannered hero the meaning of life through hand-drum lessons until he's arrested and deported. Thankfully the professor is a decent enough human and drummer by that point that he manages to score with the man's visiting mother. But, you know, in a good way. Just trust us, we liked it.

FOR SHUT-INS: New DVD's include There Will Be Blood, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, Lions For Lambs, Sweeney Todd and, in a long-awaited coup that's kept us tethered to our living rooms since Tuesday, the first season of Matlock.

Are you excited yet? Aside from wagering with us on Leatherheads' box-office plunge, what are your own plans for a slow-ish movie weekend?

Sarah Larson Refashions George Clooney's Home Into Something Resembling The 'View' Set

Molly Friedman — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Last night was a special one as NBC's Thursday night primetime players officially made their post-strike return, and we hope for Sarah Larson's sake that George Clooney wasn't watching. As many of you will recall, Jan and her implants made a nightmarish appearance on The Office, dousing Michael's condo with scented candles and every other kind of annoying "feminine touch" imaginable. And as a source tells OK!, Clooney's arm candy is guilty of the same behavior while George is sadly still promoting box office dud Leatherheads out of town:

"It's still very much George's place, but she's got her clothes there and she thought [Jo Malone scented candles and fresh flowers] would be nice."

But how does the Norton-y actor feel about all the girly smells wafting through his home?

According to OK! George is simply delighted. As Clooney is fond of reminding the entire world, he once had a pet pig named Max. A pet pig! Because he's quirky! And though Max is now trotting around Celebrity Pet Heaven, his aura still lingered in the form of odd smells. And Clooney "has been joking to his hotelier friend Rande Gerber that finally his home...smells good!" We just hope Sarah and her cocktail waitress friends don't go too wild shooting Penthouse-esque photos and levitating above fireplaces, leading to a scented candle inferno.

SARAH LARSON PLAYS HOUSE [OK!]

That Clooney Charm Always Wins!

Douglas Reinhardt — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:10:00 EDT

boomp3.com

At the after party for the London premiere of Leatherheads, Clooney made a bet with a couple of pals that he could probably get more numbers with one eye shut than they all could with both eyes open. The score at the end of the night? Clooney 12, Other Guys 3.

[Photo Credit: Bauer-Griffin]

Renee Zellweger's Inner Party Girl Breaks Loose In London

Molly Friedman — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:30:00 EDT

Of course we always enjoy seeing celebrities abandon their red carpet personas and let loose, but when they start emerging from nightclubs barely standing and sporting lipstick marks on their collarbone, we start to worry. After obediently posing for pictures at last night's premiere of Leatherheads in London, Renee Zellweger dove bob first into the party scene alongside a better-behaved George Clooney. And, as these pictures show, Zellweger may have downed one too many pricey cocktails across the pond.

Renee made yet another tight-lipped and prim appearance for the photographers on the carpet, but couldn't quite stay balanced leaving the after-party in Mayfair. Looks as though she even needed the assistance of far-meatier arms to make it to her ride intact.

Once inside her car, we catch a glimpse of a very Britney Spears-esque lipstick stain on her neck. We don't know which is more disturbing: the possibility that Renee partook in some girl-on-girl action or that she got so drunk she nodded off and stained herself.

Either way, we are happy she appeared to make it home in one "squiffy" and "tiddly" piece.

[Photo Credits: Isoimages, Big Pictures, Matrix, Wireimage via The Daily Mail]

SQUIFFY RENEE ZELLWEGER ENJOYS THE POST-PREMIERE PARTY V. V. MUCH [Daily Mail]

Further accelerating his apparent collapse...

STV — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 19:50:57 EDT

Further accelerating his apparent collapse from coveted leading man to salt-and-pepper has-been, revised opening weekend figures for George Clooney's Leatherheads put the screwball gridiron comedy at a lackluster $12.6 million — a full million below Universal's original report and only enough for a third-place finish behind 21 and Nim's Island. While we maintain our original suspicion that no film can withstand a Reel Geezers pan, we don't actually think this portends the catastrophe foretold by more dedicated skeptics. We also appreciate Steven Zeitchik's moral support on Clooney's behalf at his Risky Biz blog: "Clooney hasn't opened a movie in a decade. Apart from the Ocean's pics — which the presence of Damon and Pitt render useless as evidence — no Clooney-anchored movie in recent memory has cracked $13 million in its first weekend of wide release. The Good German? Michael Clayton? Intolerable Cruelty? ... Box office just isn't his thing." Yessir, color us reassured. [Reuters]

'Leatherheads' Fumbles During Opening Weekend, Casting Doubt On Clooney's Bankability

STV — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 13:05:00 EDT

When our cultural faith is shaken to its very core by the passing of Charlton Heston and looming Short Circuit remakes, we know we can always find quiet comfort in the security of numbers. Box-office numbers, to be exact:

1. 21 - $15.1 million
The geeks-take-Vegas opus shocked observers by not only sustaining its top spot for a second consecutive week, but also by outlasting consistently sluggish reviews (thus establishing critics' rumored irrelevancy beyond a doubt and putting in motion a unilateral purge of the eight remaining full-time reviewers working in the United States).

2. Leatherheads - $13.4 million
George Clooney's latest directorial/starring effort was easily the week's most stirring disappointment, pulling in woefully less than the $20 million forecast by observers last week. Analysts point out potential stumbling blocks from a misleading marketing campaign to a football film opening on a basketball/baseball weekend, but let's face it: No film can survive an opening-weekend torpedo from the influential critical duo Reel Geezers, who "felt bad for the cameramen and everyone involved."

3. Nim's Island - $13.3 million
Before this morning we'd never even heard of this movie, the script for which a Fox executive is said to have discovered under his passenger seat while searching for his dropped Bluetooth earpiece. Was this actually released, or was this just a WGA-engineered ploy to make its newly fi-core archenemy Clooney feel worse about Leatherheads?

4. Horton Hears a Who! - $9.1 million
Plunging nearly 50 percent from its bridesmaid perch last week, Horton nevertheless sustained a Top-5 berth. Jim Carrey spent the weekend calculating the dynamics of his newfound leverage, which should be just enough to get his and Spike Jonze's Ripley's Believe it or Not adaptation pushed up to a 2017 release.

11. Stop-Loss - $2.3 million
Is Hollywood out of touch when it comes to the Iraq War? Oh, wait.

Kentuckians Thrill To Return Of Their Leathernecked Prodigal Son

Seth — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 12:24:09 EDT

George Clooney's old-timey small town whistle-stop tour to promote Leatherheads made a stop at his home town of Maysville, Ky. yesterday (he's really from Augusta, Ky., pop. 2004). There he was mobbed by 3,000 fans, for many of whom this was the single most exciting event in their lives since corn-mulching went automated. Unfortunately, some confusion at the People.com editorial desk led to the site misidentifying the movie as "Leathernecks," a seemingly minor inaccuracy which could have led to mass confusion when thousands of moviegoers showed up to his period screwball comedy expecting yet another of Clooney's trademark probing dramas, this one about the 2008 Republican primary.

George Clooney Takes Red Carpet Home [People]

George Clooney Premiere Politics Leave Easterners United in Despair

STV — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 17:29:25 EDT

Hollywood narrowly averted A-list disgrace recently when it was revealed that George Clooney's aw-shucks humanitarian cred didn't quite extend to the extras from his new film, Leatherheads. In lieu of Universal's official launch March 31 at Grauman's Chinese Theater, the extras will stage their own red-carpet premiere in Greenville, S.C.. Reaction today is fierce along the Eastern seaboard, starting in Greenville itself, where one event organizer kept it real while Clooney's panicked flack urged calm:

"Decade after decade, for well over a century now, the lowly movie extras have been ignored," Robert McClure, a paramedic who expects to appear on screen both as a coach and a man who marks downs on the sidelines in Leatherheads, explained via e-mail. ...

Stan Rosenfield, Mr. Clooney's publicist, said he did not believe his client would attend the Greenville premiere. But he said Mr. Clooney planned to return to the Carolina upcountry next week as part of a whistle-stop tour — perhaps partly by railroad — planned to promote Leatherheads.

Frustration persisted in New York, however, where outrage at also being passed over (or at least distaste over the film's ad saturation) resulted in the violent defacing of Clooney's Leatherheads mug throughout the city's subway system.

[Photo Credit: Greenville Online]

A Premiere Far From Hollywood [NY Times]

Super Bowl Movie Trailers: The Lineup, MVPs, and Instant Replays

mollyf — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 18:06:03 EST

Yes, it was a helluva game. And yes, the Manning bros' simultaneous smiles were near-cinematic, as were Plaxico's tears. But unlike the rest of America, we opposed conformity and muted the game, not the commercials. Why? Brand spankin' new movie trailer debuts! And no offense to unlikely hero Eli, but even your wildcard win can't usurp any heat from the likes of Iron Man's Robert Downey Jr. clad in jet-powered metal or Adam Sandler's Israeli accent as a combat soldier-turned-hair-stylist in You Don't Mess With The Zohan. All six trailers shown (and then promptly dissected) after the jump.

Leatherheads Release Date: April 4 Tagline: "In the beginning, the rules were simple. There weren't any." Prime Players: George Clooney, natch, along with Renee Zellweger and John Krasinski (the latter finally making up for That Movie Of Which We Do Not Speak). Highlights: Clooney looking tawny, taut and (gasp!) crackin' jokes, a tiny white bulldog wearing an old-school leather football helmet and, most importantly, Renee turning up as a red-velvet-wearing sports reporter, retooling that charismatic Chicago twang she perfected.

Iron Man Release Date: May 2 Tagline: "Heroes aren't born. They're made." Prime Players: Robert Downey Jr., Terrence Howard, Jeff Bridges, Ghostface Killah (really), and a blink-and-you-miss-her Gwynnie Paltrow. Bonus: Directed by Jon Favreau! Highlights: Pretty much everything Downey says, including "Yeah, I can fly,"and "I'm workin' on something big." Plus the very sight of Terrence's blue-eyed punim. Oh right, and the explosions. Lots and lots of explosions.

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian Release Date: May 16 Tagline: "A New Age Has Begun." Prime Players: Tilda Swinton returns, as do the four annoying tykes, but new cast members include Liam Neeson and our favorite height-challenged dude with a 'tude, Peter Dinklage. Highlights: Awesome footage of London's The Strand metro stop morphing into a tropical beach after one empty car goes by. Plus the hottest newbie since Harry Potter grew pubes: Ben Barnes in the title role.

You Don't Mess With The Zohan Release Date: June 6 Tagline: "I come here to start new life, find nice woman, then make the boom-boom." Prime Players: Sandler stars in the title role and Emmanuelle Chirqui plays the love interest. Sandler hanger-on Rob Schneider and fascinatingly, Henry Winkler and Mariah Carey playing "themselves." Highlights: Sandler's accent, hair, outfits, and facial expressions as a Mossad agent who fakes his death in order to "cut and style hair" puts Jack Black to shame. Also, depictions of Israel as a land where blondes jump around the beach in red, white and blue bikinis are so freakily erroneous they border on Borat levels of hilarity. Finally...um, Sandler is super hot for the first time in recent memory once he restyles himself as a New Yorker.

Wanted
Release Date: June 27
Tagline: "Choose your identity." (Um, can we borrow Jolie's for a hot second?)
Prime Players: Pre-preggers Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy and the always dependable Morgan Freeman.
Highlights: Angie's first magnetic, eyeliner-drenched appearance in a drugstore five seconds in, curveball bullets shot in slo-mo, McAvoy breaking through glass windows, and yeah, the classic shots of Angie shooting massive guns out the passenger window of a red speedster. And...that eyeliner. Wow.

Wall-E
Release Date: June 27
Tagline: "After 700 years of doing what he was built for - he'll discover what he's meant for."
Prime Players: Pixar, the voices of Fred Willard (!) and Jeff Garlin.
Highlights: Dude, these guys made The Incredibles and Ratatouille. You need highlights? It takes place in 2700, k? Pretty much all you need to know...to know that it will kickall the others' asses.