Movies Archives

New York, December 17, 2009 – Robert Downey, Jr. is a fierce action hero in his turn as the legendary detective in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes.  “He’s really lean and tough.  He does this stuff every day,” co-star Mark Strong said at the movie’s New York premiere.  “A day before we were going to do the fight scene, I heard this slapping noise coming from the corner of the studio, and I turned around, and he and his martial arts trainer were beating the hell out of each other,” added Strong, who plays Holmes’s nemesis. 

Downey says his martial arts background was indeed a big help in this role.  “I started studying martial arts earnestly five years ago.  And if I had just decided that I’d do a little martial arts choreography, I probably would have wound up in the hospital,” Downey told us.

Jude Law explained his sexy take on Holmes’s sidekick Watson: “I was intrigued because my preconceived notion of Watson was probably like everyone else’s: this guy with a wastepaper basket stuck on his foot, you know, a large belly and falling over,” Law said.  “And I went to the source material and realized there was this incredible character that hadn’t really been mined before, and I liked the challenge of bringing that to film.  And I liked the idea, too, that there was a kind of tougher, rougher edge to their adventures.” 

New York, December 15, 2009 – Nine may be the most star-packed movie in recent memory, and most of them were on the red carpet at the musical’s New York premiere.  Sophia Loren disappointingly did not attend, so we made do with Judi Dench, Penelope Cruz, Daniel Day-Lewis, Nicole Kidman, Fergie (the only cast member who is actually a singer-dancer,) Marion Cotillard and Kate Hudson.  Not a bad turnout – and that was just the cast. 

Family and friends like Hudson’s mom, Goldie Hawn, Fergie’s husband, Josh Duhamel, Kidman’s good pal Naomi Watts and Cruz’s longtime friend and collaborator Pedro Almodovar added star wattage to the evening.  And then there were just curious A-list hangers on like Madonna and her daughter Lourdes, Julian Schnabel, Tobey Maguire, Tony Bennett, Rudy Giuliani and Neil Simon. 

How's that for a guest list? After the screening at the Ziegfeld Theatre, buses transported the glamorous folks to the after party at nightspot M2.

New York, December 2, 2009 – A slew of stars turned out for the New York premiere of The Lovely Bones, a drama based on the best-selling novel by Alice Sebold.  Patricia Clarkson, Courtney Love, John Leguizamo, Rachel Dratch, violinist Joshua Bell, Helena Christensen and Nick Rhodes were among those who turned out to see how director Peter Jackson handled the sensitive material. 

Stanley Tucci stars as a creepy murderer and 15-year-old Saoirse Ronan, who was Oscar-nominated for her role in Atonement, plays the victim.  Tucci said he did a lot of “horrifying” research for the role, and yes, he admits that working with such material was, at times, depressing.

Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz and Michael Imperioli also star. Susan Sarandon provides comic relief as the glamorous, booze-swilling, chain-smoking grandmother.  The Lovely Bones, which opens on December 11, marks Peter Jackson’s departure from mega-blockbusters like the Lord of the Rings trilogy and King Kong. 

New York, November 30, 2009 – The movie awards season got its official start on Monday with the IFP’s Gotham Independent Film Awards.  Big stars like Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin, Willem Dafoe and Ryan Reynolds gathered at Cipriani Wall Street to celebrate indie movies like Big Fan, A Serious Man and The Hurt Locker. 

The evening’s funniest shtick was from presenters Rosie Perez and Anthony Mackie, who opened with a shout out to the host, comic Kumail Nanjiani: “That guy - I don't know how to pronounce his name - but you're a funny motherf---er,” said Perez, stunning the audience into silence.  “We can curse right?” she asked innocently, and then rambled on hilariously on everything from having once married a Breakthrough Director winner, but being embarrassed because they are now divorced, congratulating the Yankees on their winning season, and toasting a mortified Willem Dafoe on his large member in the movie Antichrist.

Not all of the nominees were unknowns – Chris Rock, the Coen brothers, James Toback and David Strathairn were all up for awards.  Receiving Gothams special tributes were director Kathryn Bigelow, actors Natalie Portman and Stanley Tucci, and producers Tim Bevan and Eric Fellner. 

New York, November 19, 2009 – We laughed when the Cinema Society requested that everyone keep their screening of Twilight: New Moon a secret.  But miraculously, there was no crowd of screaming tweens when we arrived at the Landmark Sunshine Cinema on Manhattan’s Lower East Side, and only a few waited forlornly in the rain when the movie was over. 

Robert Pattison, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner turned up unmolested, along with cast-mates Kellan Lutz, Ashley Greene, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser and Nikki Reed.  

And who came for a preview of the about-to-be-released record breaking blockbuster?  Howard Stern, Emma Roberts, Fergie, Natalie Portman, Ed Westwick and Jessica Szohr, Ivanka Trump, Taylor Momsen, Joan Jett and Abigail Breslin, to name a few.   

Afterward, everyone headed over to The Box for a loud, crowded party, and as it got later and later, we realized that Pattinson, Stewart and Lautner never did turn up for the post-screening bash.