Screenhead

Actress Penelope Cruz was on ‘Charlie Rose’ last night, where she discuss her latest movie Broken Embraces.  Cruz is very genuine in this interview. I find Charlie Rose’s approach to celebrities very relaxing for the celebrity and very insightful for the viewer. 

Here is what Cruz told Rose about the influence of Oscar winning director Pedro Almodovar:

“I was fascinated with him as an artist and with him as a person because of what he represented in our country.  The first thing I remember was in the ‘80’s, and I was watching movies that I was not old enough to watch.  But I was really fascinated by his way of seeing the world.

And the time that I saw Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down I was 13.  And I always tell this story, but it’s true, that that was the day when I took a walk by myself after I watched the movie and I decided to look for an agent and try to become an actress so that I could one day meet him and work with him.” 

If you missed last night’s interview with Penelope Cruz, catch it again tonight on BLOOMBERG TELEVISION at 8PM and 10PM ET, or listen to the interview simulcast on Bloomberg Radio.  Bloomberg Radio is broadcast on 1130AM in the New York Metropolitan area and is available on XM and Sirius.

Have you had a chance to check out Precious?

In celebration of the recent successof the movie Lionsgate wants to share a brand new poster from Precious! This poster is more realistic compared to the other one, which was abstract. This one promotes positive feedback from critics and the like.

The film is expanding to 600+ theaters starting tomorrow. Here is the website that includes a full list of theaters and cities: www.preciousinmycity.com.

As we speed towards the close of 2009, WWE is gearing up to go out on top with their heart stopping event, Survivor Series, coming to you live Sunday November 22, 2009 at 8:00 PM Eastern Time and 5:00 PM only on Pay Per View!

At this year’s event, the reigning champions will fight to keep their title against not one but two opponents at once!  World Heavyweight Champion the Undertaker will take on the Big Show and Chris Jericho while WWE Champion John Cena will try to fend off Triple H and Shawn Michaels!   Who will survive, and what will be left of them!?

Visit the official site for all the Triple Threat Match details here.  

Screenhead and WWE have joined up to offer a special package giveway.  Please post your to enter the Surviors Series giveaway.

Survivor Series Prize Pack includes:

• 1 Survivor Series anthology DVD
• 1 Survivor Series 2009 t-shirt
• 1 DX Army Baseball Cap  

Screenhead will pick the winner Wednesday, December 2, 2009.

A Breathalyzer on a Keychain
Sharp and Q-Pot’s SH-04B Chocolate phone from NTT Docomo
Macro Photography Toolkits Revealed
Modern Warfare 2 brings in $550 million so far

Twilight’s sequel New Moon has set box office history by breaking all records for midnight runs, earning a monstrous $26.3 million as the movie played in 3,514 theaters at 12:01 a.m. Friday.

Thus, New Moon undoubtedly beat the $22.2 million collected by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince this summer.

Check out Steve Anderson’s review!

Admittedly, when I went into New Moon this morning, I wasn’t expecting anything good.  My experience with Twilight was only a few months old, and it still hurt to think about that slow sludgy mess of sparkly emo boi vampires dragging the genre down with it.

But when I grit my teeth and walked in,  what I got was something somewhat different from what I was expecting.

Just to catch you up on the plot, we’re still with screechy loser Bella Swan and her sparkly emo boi vampire boyfriend Edward.  Only now, we discover that werewolves are also thrown in the mix (it was probably supposed to be a surprise but they tipped their own hand on this point MONTHS ago) and for some reason, both vampire Edward and relative newcomer werewolf Jacob Black are all very much into this pasty cipher of a girl who seems to exist for no other reason than to give the teenage girl fans in the audience an easy point for self-insertion.

Yes, there’s still plenty wrong with this whole thing.  One, none of these people can act worth a fart in a stiff wind–Kristen Stewart still seems dazed by the whole thing and is acting like she’s been suffering a concussion since about ten minutes into the first movie.  Robert Pattinson is a willowy mess–when he takes his shirt off and reveals his new “six pack” it looks like nothing so much as a man in desperate need of a SANDWICH.  Taylor Lautner is the girliest macho man I’ve ever SEEN.  He’s trying DESPERATELY hard to be some kind of bad-ass but then everything he tries is toned down so hard for the consumption of the tweenagers in the audience.  It’s like someone told him, “Be a bad boy, but don’t actually be THREATENING.”  He’s doing his best, I think, but he’s doing it under terribly strained conditions.

Also, why isn’t White Wolf suing holy hell out of Summit, Stephenie Meyer, et al for copyright violation?  I remember the nature-boy werewolves and cosmopolitan corporate vampires back when I was one of the handful of people playing the Rage card game back in 1995!  Now all of a sudden it’s a major motion picture and I don’t think White Wolf’s getting any taste on this.  They DO still have the license at last report even if it’s been sold more times than real estate.

But, like I said originally, this was better than I expected.  If for no other reason than the only way it could be much worse is if Stephenie Meyer personally came to theaters at random and gouged out the eyes of one of the viewers.  There was more action in this, and a developing storyline that still seems rather limited (White Wolf, for Pete’s sake, it’s werewolves versus vampires.  You did ALL this long before them!), but is actually somewhat bearable.

There’s still plenty of slow parts in this, though, and lots of reason to be unhappy, though not nearly as many as the FIRST Twilight installment gave us.

The Screenhead Ten Scale, naturally, agrees with me and hands over a five out of ten to a vampire franchise that may well be starting to look up.  If it continues improving at this rate, Breaking Dawn’s going to be a non-stop bloodbath and even I’ll be impressed.

Man, it’s just a big old day of mystery for you folks, isn’t it?  Got to be just KILLING you!  But don’t worry, you know your old buddy always takes care of you with the answers to his own questions in rapid fashion.

It’s Tim Allen, folks.  Tim Allen is actually making a reappearance on the big screen this January.  And even better, he’s directing.  So for once, if something goes wrong with a movie, we know EXACTLY who to blame.

And surely it’s not the writer of the upcoming train wreck in the making, Crazy on the Outside, featuring the grunt machine himself as a former prison inmate released into the care of his family, who as it turns out, is insane.

Even worse, joining this fray are none other than otherwise decent character actors Sigourney Weaver and Ray Liotta.  Now, Ray I understand.  Poor guy needs a paycheck.  But Sigourney, come on.  Surely you can hold off the tax man until the Ghostbusters remake hits!

Well, they don’t call it the January Curse for nothing, kids–brace yourselves, because this is going to be a doozy.

No, seriously, you won’t.

In fact, rather than say it myself and risk you not believing me, I’m going to just quote the results of a recent interview Woo did with Cinema Blend.  Dig the word:

Yeah, a musical, yeah! I have a script for a musical for 12 years that I paid for with my own money. I still want to make a musical. It’s an original, not from any well-known existing musical. It’s an action musical. (laughs) It’s true! We have a very good script, I wanted to make it, but it’s hard to interest studios to make a musical right now. It’s in English. I love All That Jazz, Singin’ in the Rain, West Side Story. I miss musicals.

A John Woo musical.  Now, while that might be fun, especially if it were something like Hard Boiled-The Musical (especially if he does the double handgun thing that is his hallmark, along with the slow motion dove release), I’m terrified that some day I might well wake up and find Paint Your Wagon, directed by John Woo, on my list of things to watch.

I just got goosebumps.  And they’re not the fun kind, either.

…Will Ferrell.

You know, I’m not surprised.  Really.  I’d also include words like “overrated” and “over the hill” too, because frankly, I haven’t laughed at much he’s done since the Butomi era on Saturday Night Live, and even then because he was with Chris Kattan, whose wide-eyed insanity made Ferrell seem like a straight man.

Oh, sure, Elf could’ve been a LOT worse than it was, but my stomach still churns at the thought of Step Brothers, and I still can’t make it through a performance of Semi-Pro without wishing Michigan would fall into one of the lakes, even IF it took me with it.

Ferrell, on average, only brings in about three times what he’s paid, which is actually good by any objective standard, but in Hollywood, in which budgets on single films can easily surpass the GDP of entire countries (here I am thinking of pretty much anywhere in Africa), it takes a lot more than a three to one ratio to justify the big payday.

Oh, sure, Ferrell’s known for a good joke or two, but he often spends his time in one of three basic modes:

1. Whiny man-child Will

2. Entirely too confident of his appearance Will

3. Naked Will

And frankly, I think we’ve all had enough of number three by now.  Number one makes me want to gouge out most of my sensory apparatus and number two is just boring.

So today I’ve come in contact with one of the first ever examples of Screamkings online videomaking–the question is, is their short title For Indoor Use Only any good?  Let’s watch!

A young man, working with some Christmas lights, curses the holiday in a moment of frustration.  And when that happens, Christmas decides to take its revenge.

Admittedly, Christmas horror is in fairly short supply.  But this particular example is kind of sparse.  Sparse like the needles on Charlie Brown’s tree.  Oh, sure, what’s here is done fairly well, but it’s not very satisfying.  It’s almost like the Christmas mashed potatoes, or shaped sugar cookies without frosting.  Far from the best, but not necessarily offensive.

The Screenhead Ten Scale shrugs in the general direction of this lackluster title and awards it a five out of ten.  While there isn’t anything really wrong with it, it lacks the necessary force to be called good.  The best you can say about it is that it’s merely mediocre.