The Hangover Part II: The Wolfpack Is Back, and This Time They’ve Brought a Monkey
I still have a hangover from The Hangover Part II. Initially it went down a lot like 2009's The Hangover, which is to say, tasteless and comically potent. Three men again retrace their missteps of their blacked out previous night, looking for a missing member of a wedding party as the ceremony approaches. Set in Thailand, the sequel is darker and tawdrier than the original and not quite as uproarious. Aiming for replication, it can't help being mannered. Every dirty word arrives with a sense of calculated bravado; every gander at flapping male genitalia might as well be accompanied by trumpets.
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The Gossip Machine, Churning Out Cash
I just found
a great article from the New York Post that shows how "Celebrity Gossip" has developed into a new form of business for celebrities and gossip sites such as TMZ or Radar. Every little bit of the celebrities private lifes is exploited by the media and millions of people can't get enough of the juicy details of Schwarzenegger's affair, Charlie Sheen's latest outburst or the juicy details of Robert Pattinson's relationship with Kristen Stewart. The public life is forced onto them as soon as they've entered the entertainment business, and either they try to resist by avoiding known celebrity hot spots and leading a quiet life behind closed doors, or they try to use the cameras following their every move to boost their fame.
This is often a dirty game as the gossip sites have proved their unscrupulous work ethic in the past, e.g. when they've obtained pictures of Rihanna after she was beaten up by her then-boyfriend Chris Brown, or when they've bought the medical records of Britney Spears after her hospitalization in Cedar's-Sinai Medical Center in 2008, not forgetting the death of Lady Diana in a car accident after she was chased by a horde of paparazzi.
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First look at Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss In ‘The Hunger Games’.
There are few movie roles that offer instantly as massive a fan base as do the lead heroines in big screen adaptations of Young Adult novels. To wit: Emma Watson, "Harry Potter's" Hermoine, is an icon of screen and style, while Kristen Stewart, the embodiment of Bella in "The Twilight Saga," has her every moody move tracked by jealous fans as she makes her way through new big screen epics and dating co-star Robert Pattinson.
Having won the next massive book-to-film role, Katniss Everdeen in Suzanne Collins' "The Hunger Games," Jennifer Lawrence knows what's in store for her. Being ready is another thing.
In an
exclusive interview with Entertainment Weekly, Lawrence discussed her sudden rise to fame -- on the back of an entirely different type of film, the indie "Winter's Bone," for which she earned an Oscar nomination -- and her mental preparation to play such a highly sought role (she won the part over fellow Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld)....
