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the name is not enough
Nobody Does it better?
Jack White/Alicia Keys '007' Theme May Leave You Shaken, Not Stirred
Though a brief, instrumental version of the new James Bond theme was released alongside a Coca-Cola commercial last week, it's only now that we can hear the full, yowling power of the Jack White/Alicia Keys duet entitled "Another Way to Die." Equal parts hair metal, Bondian bombast, and just plain weirdness (with a healthy helping of White's own "Seven Nation Army"), it's definitely... different. Does it fit into the 007 oeuvre, or will it start Quantum of Solace off on a dissonant note? Enjoy the song (and the additional eye candy) in the video above. Amy Winehouse, your move! [Stereogum]
Defamer Fall Movie Preview
Our office's crystal ball usually tends to function best on Fridays — and even then, as we handicap new releases in our Defamer Attractions column, it can be a tad hinky. But after a few weeks of painstaking inquiry, we think we now have a handle on some of the fall movie slate's biggest revelations to come. Will Brad Pitt backward-age his way to Oscar immortality? Is Twilight really the best investment for your vampire-movie dollars? Can Beverly Hills Chihuahua live up to its exceptional promise? Follow the jump for answers to those and a few of the season's other pressing questions. Feel free to scan your own tea leaves as well; our own oracle shuddered and crapped out the minute we asked about Australia, so any and all input is welcome. Onward!
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Oscar-Winner Brad Pitt, Resurgent Weinsteins and 9 Other Bold Predictions For Fall Movie Hell
Our office's crystal ball usually tends to function best on Fridays — and even then, as we handicap new releases in our Defamer Attractions column, it can be a tad hinky. But after a few weeks of painstaking inquiry, we think we now have a handle on some of the fall movie slate's biggest revelations to come. Will Brad Pitt backward-age his way to Oscar immortality? Is Twilight really the best investment for your vampire-movie dollars? Can Beverly Hills Chihuahua live up to its exceptional promise? Follow the jump for answers to those and a few of the season's other pressing questions. Feel free to scan your own tea leaves as well; our own oracle shuddered and crapped out the minute we asked about Australia, so any and all input is welcome. Onward!
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Dr. No, No, No
Rejected Amy Winehouse Threatens To Release Mumbled '007' Theme Herself
Though producers for the upcoming James Bond film Quantum of Solace eventually settled on Jack White and Alicia Keys to record the series' first duet, there is one wronged woman who will not go away quietly, and her name is Amy Winehouse. The crack-smoking chanteuse was the first singer approached for the project, and though producers claimed that recording sessions yielded nothing, Winehouse begs to differ — in fact, she told New! that she plans to put her own Bond theme out when the film premieres:
More »"I guess they are going for clean-cut and boring. When I do release mine – and I am tempted to do it on the same day – this would be the bigger hit. If they change their minds, I’m waiting!”
fall guys
Shaken Hollywood Discovers Grim Reality That Actors, Stuntmen are Mortal
We knew all about the Chinese warship fires, Daniel Craig finger severings and a few other violent tragedies to have recently befallen the sets of several high-profile film shoots. But we never quite thought of it as what one might classify as a trend, that three-to-a-bundle happenstance requiring pieces like the one in today's LA Times hinting stunt snafus are the newest, hottest, must-have Hollywood mishaps:
[John Woo's film] Red Cliff isn't the only would-be blockbuster beset by accidents and tragedy. Two stuntmen were burned while making the Adam Sandler comedy You Don't Mess With the Zohan. Visual effects technician Conway Wickliffe was killed while prepping the Batmobile for the upcoming The Dark Knight. According to a production source, Wickliffe and a colleague were videotaping the Batmobile as it spun around a racetrack to see if it was properly rigged to do stunts. Wickliffe was hanging out the window with the video recorder when the driver accidentally careened into a tree. The police investigated and found no wrongdoing.
To say nothing of poor James Bond's car trouble, including two unintentionally totaled autos and one injured stuntman on Quantum of Solace. But there's hope yet after the jump!
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best of both worlds
The Quantum Of Cyrus
We're still flipping through "The New Classics" issue of Entertainment Weekly that hit newsstands about two weeks ago. And while we feel that, on the whole, the staffers over there put together a pretty thorough examination of the last 25 years of pop culture, we do have a few qualms with their list. Chief among them is the inclusion of Casino Royale, the 2006 rebooting of the Bond franchise, which came in at #19 in their list of Top 100 movies. While it was certainly a serviceable action thriller, we've never quite been able to understand Owen Gleiberman's fascination with the film (he also rated it the top movie of 2006). Sure, the opening sequence was pretty cool if you've never seen Banlieue 13 or The Bourne Supremacy, but for us, the rest of the film was pure, uncut meh. After all, it couldn't have been just us who fell asleep during that interminable card game of Uno* that took up the entire third act of the film, right? But we're getting off track here. What we meant to be discussing all along is the new trailer for JB22, aka Quantum Of Solace, which we have for you after the jump. More »
Sniff
It's Alright For Leading Men To Cry
A new book of photography called Crying Men contains portraits of some of the most respected and accomplished male movie stars of our era, engaged in the kind of emasculating waterworks we're all taught from a very young age is better suited to those who obsesses about designer shoes and tap their feelings out into a computer. ("Later that day I got to thinking about shows of emotion etc etc...") How did photographer Sam Taylor-Wood elicit these moments of raw vulnerability from her subjects? In some cases, such as in the portrait of Hayden Christiansen above, it was as simple as reading the actor selections from a number of Jumper reviews. Others were not so easy. From the publisher's website:
More »[S]he shoots them in role, asking each to perform and cry for the camera and demands the actor’s investment in the process. These are no passive sitters.
curses
Finger Severing Just Another Day at the Bond Office for Daniel Craig
The legend of the "James Bond Curse" took another wholly contrived media twist Tuesday, when Daniel Craig reportedly severed the tip of one of his fingers while shooting the particularly unlucky Quantum of Solace at Pinewood Studios. The injury is Craig's second in a week (he'd previously required eight stitches to close a gash in his chin), but that's just the beginning, notes The Daily Mail:
'There was quite a lot of blood and it was decided he needed to go to hospital for emergency treatment,' explained a member of the Bond production team. 'Some people are beginning to believe the film is jinxed.' ...More »
science
Morphing Technology Produces Perfect-Faced Gefilte Stars
While individual celebrities each have their own, signature facial characteristics—the Clooney brow, the Damon eyes, the Streep nose—it would seem to us that with all the scientific advances now available (clone-morph/stem-cell/gene-splicing technologies or what have you, we're not exactly sure how all that wizardry works), that cherrypicking the best of what's out there and compressing the bits and pieces into one star-loaf is definitely the way to go. Apparently, Star magazine had the very same idea, as they've attempted the darned-near impossible:
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9 short months away
