Naked Jolie Tops Box Office | Jerry Maguire (aka Tom Cruise) In Hitler Murder Attempt | James Bond's Next Villain Revealed
Naked Angie Beats Gangsters at Box Office
Angelina Jolie has finally gotten a hit movie.
"Beowulf," the motion capture film directed by Robert Zemeckis, looks like it will have a $27 million weekend. On Friday night it took in over $9 million and handily grabbed the top dollar spot from "American Gangster."
In the film, Angelina Jolie speaks with the same accent she had in "The Mighty Heart"—call it her foreign accent. But more importantly, she's naked!
In school, "Beowulf" — which used to be about a monster named Grendel — was the book you couldn't get people to read. But add in a naked Jolie — and voila! — serious literature is now ready for the mass audience.
With this success, though, Zemeckis and Jolie might be interested in remaking more texts that have been abandoned over time. Are we ready for Proust or Homer in this fashion? Yes! As long as a naked Angelina Jolie is added to the mix!
Jerry Maguire (aka Tom Cruise) In Hitler Murder Attempt
Jerry Maguire tried to kill Adolf Hitler? Or was it Joel from "Risky Business"?
The first trailer is out from the Tom Cruise movie “Valkyrie” and it’s a doozy. This misguided attempt by Cruise to win fans for Scientology in Germany by playing a local hero has got to be the single worst idea in modern movie history.
As I’ve said before, the tag line should be: “You had me at Achtung.”
Even though this is not “Springtime for Hitler,” the trailer is so awful and so indicative of what’s to come, you can only imagine Mel Brooks popping up in it.
Cruise wears an eye patch and a Nazi uniform, but speaks with the same flat, unaffected American accent that places him somewhere between Redondo Beach and Johnny Rockets. It’s absolutely hysterical to hear and see a boyish Nazi with blazing white perfect teeth and that voice announce, “We must kill Hitler.”
The accent is only part of the problem, but it’s a big part. Cruise apparently didn’t even try for a German sound to play Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg. It’s as if Meryl Streep wandered into “Sophie’s Choice” sounding like a Valley Girl.
If this was the way he thought he’d get into the hearts and minds of Germans, maybe he should get some new marketing advice. When the fans in that country see this, even Brunhilde won’t be able to help him!
James Bond's Next Villain Revealed
Daniel Craig had better look out. I’m told that Mathieu Amalric, the probable Oscar nominee from Miramax’s “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” is James Bond’s next villain. That was the word Thursday at a lunch for “Diving Bell" director Julian Schnabel and Amalric.
Even though sources insist it’s true, Amalric would neither confirm nor deny. Since his “Diving Bell” character communicates through blinking, we thought of asking him to do just that — one for yes, two for no — but thought better of it. Anyway, expect a formal announcement shortly. This is a done deal.
For the untitled Bond movie’s director Marc Forster, Amalric is a brilliant choice. He’s a youthful looking 42-year-old overnight sensation, an independent French film director who only started seriously acting in films at age 30 and has suddenly been thrust into a hot career.
So what does he want to do? “I want to direct my next film,” he told me over lunch at Brasserie Ruhlmann in Rockefeller Center in New York City.
Of course, it was hard to finish a conversation with Mathieu (pronounced Matthew) because women, one after another, wanted to come over and “just say hello.” Then, you know, they don’t leave.
“It’s like a dream,” Almaric said to me between visitations.
So who is this guy? Mathieu Amalric’s got a very French father who lives in Corsica with his second wife, and a Polish-Jewish-French mother in Paris.
He looks a little bit like a young Roman Polanski, which makes sense because the mother comes from the same village as "The Pianist" director.
And even more ties: Polanski’s beautiful wife, Emanuelle Seigner, plays Amalric’s ex in “Diving Bell.” (The film also features the sensational Marie-Josee Croze.)
He got the part of French Elle magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby thanks to producers Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall, who produced Steven Spielberg’s “Munich.” If you remember, Amalric was the breakout actor from that movie. He played the rich, young French arms dealer who worked with his father (Michael Lonsdale) from their chateau. When Schnabel was looking for an actor to play the part of Bauby, who was rendered paralyzed from a stroke but still managed to write a book, Kennedy and Marshall suggested Amalric.
Let me say this: if Mathieu Amalric isn’t nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, then something is really wrong. His performance is nothing less that stunning, a miracle. He belongs in a group with John Cusack (“Grace Is Gone”), Johnny Depp (“Sweeney Todd”), Philip Seymour Hoffman (“The Savages”) and Daniel Day-Lewis (“There Will Be Blood”). As Bauby he manages to take what could have been maudlin and makes it full of life.
Don’t worry that he’s French. This is no Roberto Benigni. Even though “Diving Bell” is told mostly in French, the actor’s English is just fine. He lived in Washington, D.C., from ages 5-8 because his father was a journalist on assignment. Mathieu is already in demand from the TV talk shows for interviews. And all this is a little strange for him.
“The Oscars are a big deal?” he asked at lunch. “It will help the film?”
He is not kidding.
“Diving Bell and the Butterfly” is not a depressing movie, by the way. It’s life affirming, and gorgeously crafted by director and famed artist Julian Schnabel.
Ronald Harwood, who won the Oscar for “The Pianist” and also wrote “Being Julia” and “The Dresser,” did the screenplay. They all deserve nominations. And if they don’t get them, well, then, when Amalric is schooled in James Bond he can threaten to blow up the Academy!
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox