shortformblog: obitoftheday: Obit of the Day (Breaking): Academy Award Nominee Michael Clarke Duncan Michael Clarke Duncan was a big man, (6’ 5”, 315 pounds) and may have normally been found on the football field. But the Chicago native was forbidden from playing by his mother, so he moved to the stage. After graduating from community college Duncan found himself digging ditches for the local gas company, it was then that he decided to move to Hollywood. Duncan’s imposing physique and talent earned him a role in the blockbuster asteroid film, Armageddon (1998). The following year, his co-start, Bruce Willis, called Frank Darabont who was directing the film version of Stephen King’s novel, The Green Mile. Willis recommended Duncan for the role of John Coffey the gentle giant who brought magic to Tom Hanks’ death row. For his performance, Duncan was nominated for Best Supporting Actor. Duncan would be featured in various films and TV series (including Sin City, Talladega Nights, Family Guy, and Chuck). His final two films, In the Hive and The Challenger are not yet released. In July 2012, Duncan suffered a heart attack. He was unable to recover and died on September 3, 2012. He was only 54. Sources: Chicago Tribune and IMDB.com (Image is copyright of PETA and courtesy of ecorazzi.com) He deserved all the praise he got for “The Green Mile.” It’s sad he died so young.
Pop-upView Separately

shortformblog:

obitoftheday:

Obit of the Day (Breaking): Academy Award Nominee Michael Clarke Duncan

Michael Clarke Duncan was a big man, (6’ 5”, 315 pounds) and may have normally been found on the football field. But the Chicago native was forbidden from playing by his mother, so he moved to the stage. After graduating from community college Duncan found himself digging ditches for the local gas company, it was then that he decided to move to Hollywood.

Duncan’s imposing physique and talent earned him a role in the blockbuster asteroid film, Armageddon (1998). The following year, his co-start, Bruce Willis, called Frank Darabont who was directing the film version of Stephen King’s novel, The Green Mile. Willis recommended Duncan for the role of John Coffey the gentle giant who brought magic to Tom Hanks’ death row. For his performance, Duncan was nominated for Best Supporting Actor.

Duncan would be featured in various films and TV series (including Sin City, Talladega Nights, Family Guy, and Chuck). His final two films, In the Hive and The Challenger are not yet released.

In July 2012, Duncan suffered a heart attack. He was unable to recover and died on September 3, 2012. He was only 54.

Sources: Chicago Tribune and IMDB.com

(Image is copyright of PETA and courtesy of ecorazzi.com)

He deserved all the praise he got for “The Green Mile.” It’s sad he died so young.

Source: obitoftheday

newyorker: I’ve written here and in the magazine in praise of “Magic Mike,” Steven Soderbergh’s exhilarating yet analytical, stylish yet finely observed quasi-musical drama set in the milieu of male strippers in Tampa. Thomas Sotinel, a film critic at Le Monde, shares this enthusiasm, and offers, today, at his blog on the newspaper’s site, a superb interview with Soderbergh in which the filmmaker fills in some notable details regarding the film’s production… - Richard Brody Click-through to read about “Magic Mike” from the film’s director, Steven Soderbergh: http://nyr.kr/MrZ7Ma  You should go see it if you haven’t!
View Separately

newyorker:

I’ve written here and in the magazine in praise of “Magic Mike,” Steven Soderbergh’s exhilarating yet analytical, stylish yet finely observed quasi-musical drama set in the milieu of male strippers in Tampa. Thomas Sotinel, a film critic at Le Monde, shares this enthusiasm, and offers, today, at his blog on the newspaper’s site, a superb interview with Soderbergh in which the filmmaker fills in some notable details regarding the film’s production…

- Richard Brody

Click-through to read about “Magic Mike” from the film’s director, Steven Soderbergh: http://nyr.kr/MrZ7Ma 

You should go see it if you haven’t!

comicallyvariant:

satisfythecrave:

just wanted to remind you all that this was a thing that happened. that’s it. nothing more. you’ve officially seen all of spider-man3 by looking at this gif set. you’re welcome.

I just fell over laughing remembering how bad the third one was. That said, I’m super excited for The Amazing Spider-Man, but I loved the first two Tobey Maguire versions.

(via comicallyvariant-deactivated201)

Source: marioncotillard

Chris Messina

Everywhere I turn there he is. How I wish the preceding sentence was actually true. I saw him in a preview for The Newsroom a couple of hours ago (even if it’s not on his IMDB page). Then he shows up in the trailers for Celeste and Jesse Forever and Ruby Sparks. He’s in Mindy Kaling’s new pilot. He is that face you keep seeing but not placing.

It was a widely misinterpreted movie, I think…. People tend to say, “Why didn’t she end up with him? He was so nice!” But I think that he was really quite guilty of projecting a fantasy onto this girl that she didn’t necessarily deserve, and that, honestly, he was pretty wrapped up in his own selfish point of view… We’ve all been guilty of it. I’m sure I’ve done the same. And we all do it to one degree or another in every relationship. But it’s just funny to me, because I felt like the point of that movie was illuminating this guy who is basically delusional, who keeps projecting all these things onto this girl, and how that’s a problem for him, and how he then sort of grows out of it. But it seems like a lot of the people that see the movie don’t quite catch that. They just think he’s a great guy.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt on (500) Days of Summer  (via jenniferbabu)

(via comicallyvariant)

(via comicallyvariant-deactivated201)

Source: grantland.com

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Fits Perfectly into Quentin Tarantino’s Movie Universe and Influences the Entire Filmography By now, most Quentin Tarantino fans are aware of the connections interlaced throughout all of his films. John Travolta’s Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction is the brother of Michael Madsen’s Vic Vega in Reservoir Dogs, Harvey Keitel’s Mr. White worked with Alabama from True Romance, the plot basis for Kill Bill is described as the synopsis for a TV series in Pulp Fiction, etc. Now the epiphany that Eli Roth’s character of Donny Donowitz aka “The Bear Jew” in Inglourious Basterds is the father of the movie producer Lee Donowitz in True Romance has inspired a truly mind-blowing theory that the rest of the films (chronologically speaking) in Tarantino’s filmography take place in a world where [Inglorious Basterds spoiler] World War II came to an end when Adolf Hitler was brutally murdered in a movie theater by the Basterds. This initial connection was brought up in an article on Cracked, but a poster on Reddit (via David Chen’s Twitter) has more eloquently summed up what this means for Tarantino’s movieverse: As it turns out, Donny Donowitz, ‘The Bear Jew’, is the father of movie producer Lee Donowitz from True Romance – which means that, in Tarantino’s universe, everybody grew up learning about how a bunch of commando Jews machine gunned Hitler to death in a burning movie theater, as opposed to quietly killing himself in a bunker. Because World War 2 ended in a movie theater, everybody lends greater significance to pop culture, hence why seemingly everybody has Abed-level knowledge of movies and TV. Likewise, because America won World War 2 in one concentrated act of hyperviolent slaughter, Americans as a whole are more desensitized to that sort of thing. Hence why Butch is unfazed by killing two people, Mr. White and Mr. Pink take a pragmatic approach to killing in their line of work, Esmerelda the cab driver is obsessed with death, etc. You can extrapolate this further when you realize that Tarantino’s movies are technically two universes – he’s gone on record as saying that Kill Bill and From Dusk ‘Til Dawn take place in a ‘movie movie universe’; that is, they’re movies that characters from the Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, and Death Proof universe would go to see in theaters. (Kill Bill, after all, is basically Fox Force Five, right on down to Mia Wallace playing the title role.) What immediately springs to mind about Kill Bill and From Dusk ‘Til Dawn? That they’re crazy violent, even by Tarantino standards. These are the movies produced in a world where America’s crowning victory was locking a bunch of people in a movie theater and blowing it to bits – and keep in mind, Lee Donowitz, son of one of the people on the suicide mission to kill Hitler, is a very successful movie producer. Basically, it turns every Tarantino movie into alternate reality sci fi. I love it so hard.
View Separately

INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Fits Perfectly into Quentin Tarantino’s Movie Universe and Influences the Entire Filmography

By now, most Quentin Tarantino fans are aware of the connections interlaced throughout all of his films. John Travolta’s Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction is the brother of Michael Madsen’s Vic Vega in Reservoir Dogs, Harvey Keitel’s Mr. White worked with Alabama from True Romance, the plot basis for Kill Bill is described as the synopsis for a TV series in Pulp Fiction, etc.

Now the epiphany that Eli Roth’s character of Donny Donowitz aka “The Bear Jew” in Inglourious Basterds is the father of the movie producer Lee Donowitz in True Romance has inspired a truly mind-blowing theory that the rest of the films (chronologically speaking) in Tarantino’s filmography take place in a world where [Inglorious Basterds spoiler] World War II came to an end when Adolf Hitler was brutally murdered in a movie theater by the Basterds.

This initial connection was brought up in an article on Cracked, but a poster on Reddit (via David Chen’s Twitter) has more eloquently summed up what this means for Tarantino’s movieverse:

As it turns out, Donny Donowitz, ‘The Bear Jew’, is the father of movie producer Lee Donowitz from True Romance – which means that, in Tarantino’s universe, everybody grew up learning about how a bunch of commando Jews machine gunned Hitler to death in a burning movie theater, as opposed to quietly killing himself in a bunker. Because World War 2 ended in a movie theater, everybody lends greater significance to pop culture, hence why seemingly everybody has Abed-level knowledge of movies and TV. Likewise, because America won World War 2 in one concentrated act of hyperviolent slaughter, Americans as a whole are more desensitized to that sort of thing. Hence why Butch is unfazed by killing two people, Mr. White and Mr. Pink take a pragmatic approach to killing in their line of work, Esmerelda the cab driver is obsessed with death, etc. You can extrapolate this further when you realize that Tarantino’s movies are technically two universes – he’s gone on record as saying that Kill Bill and From Dusk ‘Til Dawn take place in a ‘movie movie universe’; that is, they’re movies that characters from the Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, and Death Proof universe would go to see in theaters. (Kill Bill, after all, is basically Fox Force Five, right on down to Mia Wallace playing the title role.) What immediately springs to mind about Kill Bill and From Dusk ‘Til Dawn? That they’re crazy violent, even by Tarantino standards. These are the movies produced in a world where America’s crowning victory was locking a bunch of people in a movie theater and blowing it to bits – and keep in mind, Lee Donowitz, son of one of the people on the suicide mission to kill Hitler, is a very successful movie producer. Basically, it turns every Tarantino movie into alternate reality sci fi. I love it so hard.

(via comicallyvariant-deactivated201)

Source: suicideblonde

'Avengers' Smashes 2nd Weekend Box Office Record With $103.2M, Passes $1B Worldwide | EW

shortformblog:

An interesting note here:

Incredibly, The Avengers‘ 50 percent drop is the smallest second weekend decline of any film that achieved one of the Top 10 opening weekends of all time. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 fell by 72 percent after its $169.1 million debut. The Dark Knight dipped 53 percent after its $158.4 million start. The Hunger Games and Spider-Man 3 both sank by 62 percent after their debuts of $152.5 million and $151.1 million, respectively. Those sorts of drops are just expected when dealing with gargantuan openings like these, but Avengersstarted much higher and fell by much less — a clear indicator of positive audience reception.

So in other words, people really like this movie.

Reasons why you shouldn’t half-ass a movie and just expect people to show up. If it’s good people will go see it. In theaters! And this goes for all movies, not just blockbusters. Word of mouth and excitement are powerful things.

Source: popculturebrain

Do you hear that? It’s the sound of battles fought and lives lost. It once pained me to know that I am the cause of such despair. But now their cries give me strength. Beauty is my power. 

So I wasn’t going to see this. At all. But then NBC did an extended preview for their employees a couple weeks ago during a taped in-house event, and it looked pretty cool. I really hope then that I haven’t already seen all of the good parts. Also Charlize Theron herself showed up. She’s definitely one of those even-super-pretty-in-person kind of celebrities.

(via avid)

Source: screenweek.it