Say you’re an elite thief who just pulled off a brazen $388 million diamond heist. Now I get the logic of hiding in plain sight. But hell, you’re allegedly holding something north of $54 million. What makes you decide not to, say, move to a nice island somewhere with no extradition treaties? A real mystery for the ages.
Like the first in this explosive, guns and skull ridden movie, the Expendables sequel is all about the cast. This ensemble group of all stars comes together in one throbbing, heaping helping of testosterone, making this about as actiony a movie as an action movie can get. It's a caricature of the ultimate action flick, like a Snakes on a Plane meta-movie in that everybody- viewers, actors and filmmakers alike- are all in on the joke. If Hollywood were a box of toys, each of these guys is an action figure from a different comic book or TV show that you love, who come together in the sandbox for the ultimate showdown. Chuck Norris is in this for God sakes.
Word on the street is that Men's Health editor-in-chief Dave Zinczenko has checked out of editing the magazine. So why bother writing new cover lines for the latest issue when the ones from October 2007 will do?
We'd say the new redband trailer for Crank 2 is NSFW, but let's face it: You're not at work today, and even if you were, it's Friday viewing the whole office can/should enjoy.
No flu shot can yet immunize us from the annual plague of Top 10 lists; the best you can hope for is a weaker, less-contagious strain than last year's. Stephen King gives us hope.
Holding Out for a Hero: Sure, Transporter 3 features a scene where Jason Statham takes off his clothes so he can hit bad guys with his shirt, but is that gay? Yes! says series mastermind Louis Letterier. "If you watch the movie and you know he's gay, it becomes so much more fun," Leterrier told the LAT. "Action fans in general are pretty homophobic. You see these tough guys who say, 'The Transporter, that's such a great movie!' If they only knew they're really cheering for a new kind of action hero." Sadly, Letterier handed off the Transporter 3 reins to the amazingly named Olivier Megaton, who added a very heterosexual make-out scene for Statham. "Haha, I haven’t seen it," Letterier said in response. "I can’t wait." [LAT]
Welcome back to a special holiday edition of Defamer Attractions, your weekly guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or stillborn at the movies. And this Thanksgiving, we're grateful for a slate of Wednesday releases granting us a reprieve from another day of Twilight chatter. Not that any of them will surmount last week's blockbuster, but we have a quick and dirty forecast for long weekend's hits, sleepers and subplots, including a glimpse at the biggest disappointment and underdog to come. As always, our opinions are our own, but are easy to bake for that last-minute dessert idea. The full recipe is after the jump.WHAT'S NEW: Speaking of recipes, Four Christmases sure has a fresh one! Mix Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn. Add two cups of diced ensemble players including Robrt Duvall, Jon Favreau, Kristin Chenoweth and Sissy Spacek. Flavor with ball-kicking, pratfall and baby-vomit jokes. Bake for two hours. Serve lukewarm. It's good for about $40 million over five days. Transporter 2 is a little simpler hors d'oeurve for the guys out there, with Jason Statham liberally seasoned with bullets, quick cuts and decibels, turning out $18 million before the main course on DVD. But if you're allergic to the multiplex, you may be best best suited to skip ahead to this week's new home video releases; the art-house kitchen appears to be closed to deliveries for the holiday weekend. THE BIG LOSER: Australia is almost three hours' worth of the expansive (and expensive, at $130 million) hisorical epic no one makes anymore. And despite Oprah Winfrey's lavish endorsement, there's a reason for that: It's one in a generation that actually finds any traction in the two female quadrants whose repeat viewings push it toward box-office longevity and, almost necessarily, Oscar luster. Fox needs half a Titanic here (thus its Hugh Jackman heartthrob push at non-starter Nicole Kidman's expense) to make this work, and for the sake of the studio and director Baz Luhrmann and all involved, we hope they get it. But the middling, $26 million reality — especially on Twilight's likely second week at No. 1 — is what it is.
Movie tough guy Jason Statham is just the latest celebrity to jump on the mystery stain fad. The Death Race star was spotted leaving popular Italian eatery Café Med with a rather large wet spot on the front of his t-shirt. Statham deflected any questions about the stain with the classic grade school defense, "That's for me to know and you to find out." Statham saw that interest in his stain was being to dwindle once he left the restaurant.
Welcome back to another edition of Defamer Attractions, your regular guide to the latest in abandon, excess and best-kept secrets at a theater near you. We're looking at an unusually busy — and maybe even unusually good — week for mid-August, with four new releases opening wide and Tropic Thunder looking to hold fast to No. 1. And while all the congestion is bound to squeeze at least one player out, a romantic opening at the art house is one of our favorite underdog selections to date. As always, our opinions are our own, but with this kind of unparalleled taste and accuracy, would you really want it any other way? WHAT'S NEW: Or perhaps, rather, "What isn't new?" Moreover, it's a fascinating week of studio test drives for stars of varying magnitudes, with Jason Statham vs. Anna Faris vs. Rainn Wilson vs. Steve Coogan vs. Ice Cube and all of them forced to open against a Tropic Thunder crew looking for payback after last week's disappointing take. It's not an even playing field, but Universal's updating of Death Race 2000 — now known simply as Death Race, for action fans afraid of big numbers — has the best advantage with Statham's bankable, monosyllabic heroism set for a $17.5 million take.We're pulling for Faris, meanwhile, as sharp and enduring (and continually underrated) a comic talent as anyone churned out of the Apatow stable, yet whose The House Bunny may not have the legs it needs to hop over The Dark Knight and into third place. The hell with it — we're calling for $11 million, which should narrowly surmount Batman by about $750,000. The Weinstein touch will do pretty much what you expect for Ice Cube's PG-rated (and Fred Durst-directed) The Longshots, nudging it only slightly over $6 million. Coogan's mixed-reviewed Hamlet 2 — which Focus bought this year at Sundance for $11 million — won't break the Top 10 in limited release. Also opening: The Tori Spelling-starring Lovecraft adaptation Cthulu; the revealing (if slightly precious) documentary Anita O'Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer; and the wasted Germs/Darby Crash biopic What We Do is Secret, hands down the most dreadfully misconceived LA rock film since The Doors. THE BIG LOSER: It's not like we're not pulling for Rainn Wilson in The Rocker or anything, but seeing Fox set him up as the next Jack Black in his first real leading role — a flabby, flamboyant man-child drummer who reclaims his dream of rock stardom by joining his nephew's band — only to have him crash with maybe $5.5 million tops? It's almost enough to make us wish for his return to those not-too-long ago Bob Shaye glory days. Or at least a new season of that sitcom in which he seems to excel.
The Internet is celebrating Monday's first day of shooting on Crank 2: High Voltage the only way it really knows how: by circulating topless shots of co-star Amy Smart on location. Already knowing the plot (Jason Statham jams all over town to keep his artificial ticker above a lethal heart rate) and its general means of execution (public sex between Statham and Smart, for starters), we now have only the remaining mystery of how and exactly why Smart is bumming around the set with gaffer's tape on her nipples. After the jump, we think we may have discovered the root of her modesty.
