New 'Milk' Trailer Hits! Plus New Photos And Not Final Poster

Rope Of Silicon has new images of Josh Brolin and Emile Hirsch from Gus Van Sant's "Milk."

This poster above was over at In Contention, but then yanked cause it's not final, but according to the blog, the final poster and trailer (!) will be out tomorrow. Scratch that, today.

The biopic about the life and death of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay city supervisor of San Francisco, California, stars Sean Penn, Brolin, Hirsch, Diego Luna and James Franco.

Check out the trailer below. Here's a question, why does writer Dustin Lance Black have such top billing in the trailer and the Apple site? We've never even heard of the guy before.


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Gus Van Sant's ‘Milk,’ Pops

Just got an interesting tip from a friend who got a first look at Gus Van Sant’s “Milk” starring Sean Penn as Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to office in U.S. history slain in 1978 in his San Franciscan city (Milk was the supervisor to the city's then-mayor George Moscone who was also murdered) .

As you might have expected, considering the Oscar-bait-ness of the film (the heavy weight list of actors includes Josh Brolin, Emile Hirsch, James Franco and Diego Luna), the insider tell us the film is much more “old school” Gus Van Sant ala the assured and economical days of “Good Will Hunting,” rather than his recent experimental phase (“Elephant,” et al). Our tipster tell us the editing was fantastic, the use of old, archival footage rather seamless and adroit and that the film “pops” with vibrant color. Update: Heh, having read Jeffrey Wells' piece about our piece, we thought it was rather obvious. The tipster felt overall that the movie was "great," but didn't want to say too much outside of what we have above.

Man, we can’t wait…

In the film, Josh Brolin plays Milk's assassin Dan Wite (who used the infamous Twinkie defense to try and get off), Franco and Luna play two of Milk's former boyfriends, Emile Hirsch has the role of an aide, Stephen Spinella is Harvey's political rival and Denis O'Hare acts as real-life Senator John Briggs.

"Milk" is due November 26 in select cities and then goes wider December 5 and 12.

The synop:

Academy Award nominee Gus Van Sant directs Academy Award winner Sean Penn as gay-rights icon Harvey Milk. Mr. Milk (1930-1978) was an activist and politician, and the first openly gay man to be elected to public office in America; in 1977, he was voted to the city supervisors' board of San Francisco. The following year, both he and the city's mayor George Moscone were shot to death by another city supervisor, Dan White. Mr. Milk was previously the subject of the Academy Award-winning documentary feature "The Times of Harvey Milk," but "Milk" -- filmed on location in San Francisco -- is the first non-documentary feature to explore the man's life and career.

In a strangely prescient omen about his death, Milk once recorded a message that can now be seen as a galvanizing cry to gay rights activism: "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door." Can't wait for a trailer, this is one of our most eagerly anticipated films of the year.
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Ang Lee's 'Gay Woodstock' Film Starts to Take Shape

Remember Ang Lee's "gay Woodstock" movie ("Taking Woodstock" that was reported a few months ago?

Well, it's starting to coalesce. Young (and very droll and excellent) comedian Demetri Martin ("The Daily Show With Jon Stewart") has already signed on to play an aspiring interior designer and Variety reports that the cast has been rounded out by Emile Hirsch, Liev Schrieber and Imelda Staunton (Dolores Umbridge from the Harry Potter" movies among many British kitchen-sink dramas)

"In summer 1969, [Martin] finds himself at the center of a generation-defining experience when he volunteered the motel to be the home base for Woodstock concert organizers after his neighbor, Max Yasgur, made his farm available for the event."

Staunton and Henry Goodman will play Martin's parents, Hirsch play a Vietnam vet, Schreiber will likely tackle the role of a transvetite (!) and Jeffrey Dean Morgan from "Watchmen" (The Comedian) will play a closeted man who has an affair with the young Martin. Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan will play a hippie couple. Dan Fogler

Focus Features begins production next month. Read more...

The Trades: WB Caught Red-Handed; 'Speed Racer' Numbers Debunked, David O.Russell Movie Up & Running Again, Patti Smith Finds A Home

Those allegedly inflated "Speed Racer" box-office numbers? Oh they were inflated like an air balloon alright. Warner Bros. originally estimated that the film made some $20 million for a second place finish at the box-office this past weekend. Other studios cried foul at their numbers and it's all blown up in WB's face. The film actually only grossed $18.6 million and has been demoted to the third spot - laughably behind an Ashton Kutcher rom-com even he bet against. That's a $1.6 million dollar difference and some seriously funny math. A disastrous showing for WB's first tent pole film of the summer becomes that more embarrassing. [Associated Press]

"Speed Racer" lead Emile Hirsch seems so embarrassed by this flop that he's left his talent agency reps in a huff. [Deadline Hollywood]

Production on David O. Russell's "Nailed" has resumed. The film was shut down temporarily Friday when unions like IATSE and SAG had not been properly paid. The "cash crunch" forced the Screen Actors Guild to ask the lead actors - Jake Gyllenhaal and Jessica Biel - to leave the film until the matter was resolved, but the crisis seems averted and the shoot is up and running again. Nikki Finke seems to think this problem is systemic in Hollywood at the moment and effecting other films currently with production woes. Prepare for an obnoxious "told you so" if this proves even remotely true. [Variety]

The Patti Smith documentary "Patti Smith: Dream Of Life" has found a distrib in Palm Pictures. The film will come out later this summer - starting August 6 in New York - and like we reported a week ago, will be on dvd early next year. The doc will be on video on demand as well for those too lazy to hit the theaters this summer. [Variety]

The Broadway drama "Passing Strange" will be the first musical to have its soundtrack released early on Itunes (May 27) almost a month before it hits CD in July. [Variety]

Remember "Fraggle Rock"? Jim Henson's series about Muppets that lived in caves? The Weinstein company is going to be turning the beloved kids TV show into a live-action musical feature. [Entertainment Weekly] Should Jason Segel be worried?
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Desperate For Audiences, WB Puts Up The First Seven Minutes Of 'Speed Racer' In Hopes Of Convincing People It's Not A Total Kaleidoscopic Failure

Strap into your seats tightly, put some protective UV sunglasses on and keep a barf bag handy. Oh yeah, and remember the rules of gravity and logic no longer apply when entering this "Speed Racer" zone. Many people are already claiming, "hey, this is pretty good! Not bad, seems like fun!" These are people we don't want to know.
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'Speed Racer' Looks To Become The Garish Flop We Always Knew It Would Be

It's with a little melange of obnoxious, "we told you so" crowing and smug schadenfreude that we'd like to tell you that we knew "Speed Racer" was going to shit the colorful bed come box-office time. And a new report from the Hollywood Reporter basically confirms as much.

We asked a few months ago, who the fuck would pay to see this eyeball scorching, epilepsy-inducing disaster? Who would the audience be exactly?? And we mocked the shit out of the initial trailer. It's PG-13 and it looks like a "Rainbow Bright" episode on high grade mescaline (drop off 75% of the 25-35 audience who grew up with this thing and might have any bare traces of sentimental attachment to it at all) and it looks like such a vomit pinwheel of obnoxious day-glo colors and fey camp that it would probably scare off the under 13 crowd (which leaves the unemployed, the small, small percentage of 30 year old LSD fiends and the mildly curious/sadomasochistic - i.e. nobody). Clearly the directors - the Wachoski brothers, one sibling of undetermined sex and possibly ambiguous genitalia - have over-extended themselves.

So just as we thought, the film is apparently "tracking" extremely poorly (that's the term for expected box-office projections). The film, which stars several thousand shades of magenta, is only expected to rake in a meager $25-$35 million, plus it's supposed to come in second after "Iron Man." Ruh, roh. Houston we have a problem. After all, the film cost over $100 million to make.

Does Speed Racer even have a hope at the #1 box-office spot?

"It's too early to tell," Warners domestic distribution president Dan Fellman said. "But this is the first real family movie of the summer, and we're going to give it our best."

Translation?: "We're fucked. I've already updated my resume and sent it around West Hollywood."

New York magazine's David Edelstein hilariously calls it "a nightmare in which you're trapped in an arcade with screens on all sides and no eyelids." In fact, all the reviews are amusing. The Village Voice's J. Hoberman, who is generally even-handed and staid, describes it as, "Gaudier than a Hindu-temple roof, louder than the Las Vegas night, Speed Racer is a cathedral of glitz." Most comedic is the New Yorker's Anthony Lane who basically says the film is lower than dirt. "Though the film is not as criminally poor as "V for Vendetta," which the Wachowskis wrote in 2005, it struck me as more insidious."

Ooof! Well, we told you so!

Oh and this quote spotted at Vulture is priceless. "In the cartoon, [Speed] talks really, really, really fast, and he says the same thing over and over. He'll be like, 'I wanna go on a race, because then I can win!' And then he'll say, 'When I win, I'll have won the race!' We couldn't do that for the movie." — In answering this question, it dawns on Emile Hirsch that maybe starring in the already-originally-thin "Speed Racer" adaptation wasn't the greatest idea on earth. [MTV]
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New Speed Racer Theme 'Go Speed Racer Go' Gets Unfortunately Tweaked For The 21st Century

Warner Brothers has released the official music video for the newly revamped version of the "Go Speed Racer Go" theme. It's performed by some band called Ali Dee and the Deekompressors. As you might suspect, it's 3-minutes of painful ear damage with tons of clips from the movies and apparently spoilers too (we don't really give a rat's). "Speed Racer" stars Emile Hirsch, Christina Ricci, Matthew Fox, Susan Sarandon, John Goodman and come out in May. We think it looks like a joke and asked a few months who the hell the film would be for? And Jeffery Wells says much of the same saying the marketing faces a big challenged (duh) and that WB is "generally concerned," about how the film will play with audiences.
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That Campy 'Speed Racer' Film Looks Unbelievably Ghey

OK, who's lite-bright idea was it to let the Wachowski Brothers ghey up the "Speed Racer" movie? We're not sentimentally attached to it or anything (aside from a few Ghostface videos), but it looks like an garish, electric kool-aid acid mess mixed with the design abomination that was Bjork's Volta and Willy Wonka-flavored vomit.

Here's an idea, rather than mute the rainbow-loony comic book/cartoon ideas and make them seem more plausible (see, "Batman Begins", "Watchmen," "X-Men," i.e. most superhero/cartoon live-action adaptations), why not amplify all the cartoony, fish-eyed elements and make them snap, crackle and pop like a kaleidoscopic starbursting eyesore?

This seems to be thinking behind the Wachowski brothers anti-realism, hyper-stylized live-action rendition of their "Speed Racer" adaptation and in some ways you gotta respect their gotta-be-faithful to the original cartoon commitment and fuck-the-trends attitude.

However, did that help "The Flintstones" adaptation? Did it help any of the cartoon/super hero adaptations of the '80s and '90s? (think the Batman franchises, esp. "Batman & Robin," "Judge Dredd," "The Phantom,") Who will be the audience for this film be exactly?

Let's face it, despite the immense levels of camp, "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," constituency isn't going to show up for this one, fans of George Clooney's nippled-Batman are almost non-existent and the few sci-fi geeks and internet blobs that surely get erect from the posters and trailers can't sustain an opening weekend let alone more than a few million, can they?

The trailer for this mess looks like pure candy-coated eye diarrhea; a mix of affected ping-ponging CGI, absurdist psychedelia and "Fantasia"-esque razzle-dazzle. The vibrant, kinetic visuals look like they're trying to make you feel dizzy, vertiginous and ill. The gaudy colors make us think it's aimed at pre-schoolers and the Barney crowd (there could be a raver contingent in the house in a deep K-hole, be forewarned).

Either way, it just looks dreadful! Emile Hirsch what were you thinking? The film also stars John Goodman, Matthew Fox and Christina Ricci, but last time we checked they didn't really have careers so it's not quite as an alarming move as the young Hirsch's.

It literally makes us feel phobic towards colors, but we suppose there's some kids (and adults who should know better) that just want to see a video game up on screen with lots of wow and flutter. No accounting for taste.

You'll recall that Wu-rapper Ghostface Killah successfully petitioned his way into a cameo for the upcoming, "Iron Man," film directed by Jon Favreau. Did the Wally Champ find his way into this film? Or did he wisely see the teaser last year and think to himself, "Oh snap, fuck that." This thing opens some time in May. We could give a flying fuck.

Watch: Ghostface Killah - "Daytona 500" (the video was made of edits from the original "Speed Racer" cartoon)

Watch: New "Speed Racer" trailer

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Eddie Vedder Shoots Video For 'Wild' Soundtrack Song; Wrote Aggresive L.A. Punk Song To Get Sean Penn Off His Case About Acting

So husky-voiced grunge rocker Eddie Vedder is shooting his first video - the track "Guaranteed," a song he wrote for Sean Penn's "Into The Wild" film and a song that's been nominated for a Grammy, a Golden Globe and will be eligible for an Oscar nomination if the Academy deems it worthy enough.

According to Billboard, the clip has been directed by Marc Rocco and will premiere Jan. 7 at 6 a.m. ET on VH1.com. The video was shot in three short hours and like most-dreaded soundtrack related spots, footage from "Into The Wild" will be interspersed throughout. Can't wait to see the simultaneous juxtaposition of Vedder and Emile Hirsch howling at the moon in the woods.

Of more note and interest (and basically the reason for this post) is the fact that Sean Penn once doggedly pursued the Pearl Jam singer to act in a script he had written. According to a sidebar not online from a Billboard Q&A conducted late last year, as their friendship deepened in the mid-late '90s (Penn and Vedder both worked on "Dead Man Walking," Penn began pursuing Vedder to work on a "special project" (what that project was the piece never said)

"I had written a script that I wanted him to act in," Penn said.

Niceguy Eddie, would invariably agree only to quickly recant by phone and change his mind, but Penn was relentless and kept chasing him, insisting he'd be perfect for the role. Vedder did the only thing he could - write a punk song in protest blasting the message loud and clear: I can't!

"Every time, I'd say, 'I hate to do this but i just can't. Somebody will do it better. [Penn would] say, 'You can and you will, and I'll get you through the big waves.' So the song was called 'I Can't'." he laughed. "It was an aggressive song, kind of L.A. punk-scene aggressive. It took that to finally get through to him."

So yeah, there you have it, Sean Penn is stubborn, go figure and Eddie Vedder could have starred or at least acted in a Sean Penn film. If you've ever seen his laborious Rock N' Roll Hall induction speech for the Ramones, you're thanking your stars that the ability to write aggressive L.A. punk songs is within Vedder's reach.

Download: Eddie Vedder - "Guaranteed" (from "Into The Wild") Read more...

New 'Speed Racer' Trailer Proves Wachowski Brothers Have Completely Lost The Plot

Umm, seriously? This looks god awful. Directed by the Wachowski brothers ("The Matrix" trilogy), the film stars up and comer Emile Hirsch ("Into The Wild") Christina Ricci, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon and Matthew Fox.

But seriously, what was Hirsch thinking? This is going to be the first blight on his near-stellar career path so far. And what's up with the candy-coated aesthetic? Sure, the last two 'Matrix' films were ass, but this might be the nail in the coffin for the Wachowski's.
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