So many people in Hollywood knew about industry warthog Harvey Weinstein’s disgusting, illegal behavior behind the scenes but so few actually confronted him about it. There is the famous story of Brad Pitt defending Gwyneth Paltrow when she was coming up but those are few and far between. But only one man has ever come close to bashing Harvey Weinstein over the head with an Oscar statue he so desperately wanted: the King of the World himself that year, James Cameron.
On Oscar night 1998, James Cameron and Harvey Weinstein found themselves competing at the Shrine Auditorium, with the director there with odds-on favorite Titanic and Weinstein supporting the Miramax-supported Good Will Hunting. Titanic got off to the strong start it would carry for the rest of the night, while Good Will Hunting would nab only two statues. With Titanic having just won Best Editing, Cameron was about to give Weinstein an iceberg-sized ljump on his head. “So I’m on my way back to my seat with my editing Oscar, and this guy’s jumping up to introduce himself, saying, ‘If you want to come to work at a place that’s a friend of the artist, a friend of the filmmaker’ — he’s holding his hand out, and I just blew him off. It was just an ugly little moment.”
So what caused the rift between James Cameron and Harvey Weinstein? Even though Cameron hadn’t yet had firsthand issues with the mega-producer, he did hear how he treated his friend Guillermo del Toro on Mimic. “He had told me the horrible shit that Miramax pulled on him when he made his first American commercial film, Mimic, and they fired him. The actors, led by Mira Sorvino, kind of revolted and wouldn’t work until they brought him back. Then, when the film was successful and well regarded, Harvey sort of jumped up to take praise for the movie.”
As James Cameron further explained, he just about used his very first Oscar to give Harvey Weinstein a good will blunting. “I did defend Guillermo and I called Harvey on his bullsh*t, and then he got very loud and verbally abusive and almost potentially physically violent. And he was about to get clocked by an Oscar — which would’ve been highly appropriate, I think. But I wasn’t thinking about it in those terms; it was just the weapon at hand. The hysterical thing about the whole moment was people around us were saying, ‘Not here! Not here!’ It was kind of like, ‘It’s OK if you boys fight out in the alley, but don’t do it here at the Academy Awards!’”
Harvey Weinstein’s bullying and faux-ass kissing was notorious, and if you were in with him you were in — until you pissed him off, so it’s refreshing to see James Cameron not even entertain the idea of being an ally. Loyalty can go a long way in Hollywood, so good on Cameron, whose career has already outlasted Weinstein’s.
HBO has released the first footage of the second season of The Last of Us, and it implies that things for Pedro Pascal’s Joel may be a little bit different than they are in the game. No, not that different, but it seems like he might be going to therapy.
HBO has released the first footage of the second season of The Last of Us, and it implies that things for Pedro Pascal’s Joel may be a little bit different than they are in the game. No, not that different, but it seems like he might be going to therapy.
She wore bluuueeeee velvettttt – but she didn’t wear a cap and gown along with it. Laura Dern spent a whopping two days at UCLA before dropping out to play Sandy Williams in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet. Just imagine how much Pabst Blue Ribbon she missed out on in the dorm!
Appearing on the Where Everybody Knows Your Name podcast, Laura Dern remembered being excited to land the part in Blue Velvet but running into issues with the university, who rebuked her request to take time off to work on the film. Dern insisted she would do all the required work, which the department head was reluctant to approve. “I said, ‘I have this opportunity and he said, ‘Well, I’ll look at the script if you want to give me the script, but, you know, you’re not going to get a leave of absence. It’s not going to happen. It’s not a medical emergency.’” The next day, UCLA officially refused her request, telling her to leave college over a script like Blue Velvet’s was “insane.”
Laura Dern added, “I will just end by saying after my two days, today, if you want to get a masters in film at that school, when you write a thesis there are three movies you are required to study. And you know what one of them is,” she said, referring to the 1986 film. Whether this is true or not we have yet to confirm, but it certainly has a better shot than Grizzly II: Revenge.
Even prior to Blue Velvet, Laura Dern had already been getting her movie and TV career going – no doubt in part to being the daughter of Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd, her first movie being a small bit in Ladd’s White Lightning – but that she still wanted to pursue other interests, studying psychology and journalism, is quite admirable. And it’s apparently a good thing that UCLA was so finicky because Blue Velvet made her career, even earning her an Independent Spirit Award nomination. Dern would go on to work with Lynch on Wild at Heart, Inland Empire and Twin Peaks: The Return.
Today, Blue Velvet stands as one of the greatest films ever; it still divides viewers in its depictions of violence and abuse, but it is an enigmatic work from one of our most unique visionaries.
Actor and ever-present gem Jeff Goldblum has one of the most distinct and unique voices in the business, with a pattern that is jazzy and riffy and a cadence that is both curious and sexual. So who better than to sell the sleekest products out there? As it turns out, Jeff Goldblum did indeed serve as spokesman for Apple in the late ‘90s and early 2000s, and it may have never happened without Steve Jobs himself.
Jeff Goldblum once revealed that he was hand-picked by Apple’s co-founder for the ad gig, even though he had no idea who he was talking to at the time. “Steve Jobs called me up a few decades ago to be the voice of Apple. That was early on, and I did not know it was Steve Jobs.” With that, Goldblum would get to work selling MacIntoshes, iMacs and more to the masses. In one ad from 1999, Goldblum remarks that only 20% of people were on the internet at that time. Today, it’s estimated that around 5.4 billion people across the world are on the web – that’s close to 70%. Now, we’re not saying that Jeff Goldblum helped bump those numbers up beginning at the turn of the century, but…he totally did.
When we think “voice of Apple”, another name comes to mind other than Jeff Goldblum: Siri. And while it would be lovely to hear the gorgeous pipes of Goldblum come out of our phones, there is no evidence that Steve Jobs anticipated that technology (at least in that form) at the time. So, no, it’s extremely unlikely he wanted Goldblum in that particular role. That said, the idea of saying, “Jeff Goldblum, wake me up at 8 a.m.” sure is titillating. For what it’s worth, the original voice of Siri was Susan Bennett,
Outside of Apple, Jeff Goldlbum has also been the spokesman for everything from beer to cars to apartments to international lotteries. But his tenure with the software giant remains his most popular pitch work – and was hopefully more likely to get you to buy their products than whatever this was supposed to be.
What is the quintessential Jeff Goldblum performance? Drop your pick below!
Fantasia International Film Festival is always a highlight of the summer for the horror side of JoBlo. We’re always treated to films that absolutely blow us away. The 2024 edition of Fantasia is wrapping up this weekend and there were plenty of wonderful entries throughout the festival. While not all of them panned out (I’m sadly looking at you Witchboard), there were several that are likely to remain among the year’s best. If they release this year, that is. So let’s break down some of the best that Fantasia had to offer. If you’re interested in more information, each title has been reviewed.
Elijah Wood stars in this fantastic story about a distant father taking his daughter on an adventure to help better their position in life. It gets dark at points but otherwise has that great Goonies tone, where you just want to crawl into the screen and join in on the fun. This fits in with other great New Zealand cinema like Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Boy. While this is pretty far from horror, it’s still a great film that will make you feel like a kid again.
One of the year’s most anticipated proved to be one of the best. Following a girl and her family as they move to the German mountains for her dad’s work, strange occurrences start happening. Delightfully weird and mysterious, Cuckoo is further proof that Hunter Schafer is an actress to keep an eye on. She really carries the film, although Dan Stevens’ performance is delightfully wacky. While I predict this movies weirdness causing division, I was 100% on board for it. I can’t wait to see what others think of it when it releases on August 8th.
Easily my favorite of the Adams Family filmography, Hell Hole is so much fun from start to finish. Following an American fracking crew in Serbia, they dig up a long hibernating monster. The monster is parasitic in nature and transfers from body to body in very gory ways. Intensely violent with an energetic score, there are some really entertaining performances as the situation gets more and more dire.
I think most of us have been curious as to what Kit Harrington would settle in doing post-Game of Thrones. And I’ve always felt like there are few better showcases for an actor than playing a werewolf. The inner turmoil and then intense physical change allows for a diverse performance. This follows a family in the English countryside who have a dark secret. The mother tries to shield the daughter from her father’s ways but curiosity gets the better of her and she seeks out answers. Filled with wonderful performances (with Caoilinn Springall being a particular highlight), this werewolf film has parallels with alcoholism, allowing it to blend fantasy with reality in a truthful way.
I can’t wait to see what films we have to look forward to at the 2025 edition. Which films are you most looking forward to? Will you try to see them in theaters? Let us know in the comments!
Move over Passion of the Christ – there’s a new highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time now! Indeed, Deadpool & Wolverine, after only eleven days of release, has already overtaken the lifetime gross of Mel Gibson’s classic depiction of the crucifixion of Christ, with the Marvel three-quel only five million away from a $400 million domestic total. With a $97 million weekend, which only represents a 54% week-to-week decline, the film has already bested the lifetime totals of both Deadpool and Deadpool 2. The sky seems to be the limit for what will no doubt prove to be one of Marvel’s biggest movies ever – and proof positive that an R-rating is no detriment to the box office.
So far, the film’s international total is over $800 million, and it seems likely to pass the billion-dollar mark within a matter of days. That’s absolutely outstanding for an R-rated sequel.
Meanwhile, M. Night Shyamalan’s Trap, which features a buzz-worthy performance by Josh Hartnett, has fallen surprisingly flat at the box office. Many thought it would open in the $20 million plus range (but not us), but word of mouth, which slammed the movie with a C+ CinemaScore, is killing this one. It only made $15 million for the weekend and seems doomed to perform similarly to another movie made by a Shyamalan earlier this summer, The Watchers.
Instead, Twisters (despite already being slapped with a PVOD date) rallied at the box office to a second-place finish. While its second weekend was largely seen as disappointing as it fell over 60%, the film only fell a modest 35% in its third weekend, grossing a solid $22.6 million for a domestic total just shy of $200 million. Despicable Me 4 also continued to perform well for family audiences, adding $11.25 million to its coffers for a $313 million domestic haul.
Pixar’s runaway hit, Inside Out 2, came in fifth place with $6.7 million. With a domestic total of $626 million, it’s now the 12th highest grossing movie of all time at the North American box office. It should continue climbing the list in the weeks to come, with it nearly certain to crack the all-time top 10.
However, in terms of family movies, the Zachary Levi-vehicle, Harold and the Purple Crayon, whiffed with audiences, only grossing a measly $6 million. The summer’s horror breakout, Longlegs, made $4.14 million for a $66 million domestic total, which will likely make it one of the most profitable films of the year and a smash hit for Neon. A Quiet Place: Day One also has continued to perform well, with it making another $1.4 million for a $137.4 million domestic total. The Bollywood film Daaru Na Peenda Hove came in ninth place with $615k. At the same time, Bad Boys: Ride or Die started to conclude its successful run with $600k and a domestic total of $192.9 million, making it the second-highest-grossing movie in the franchise.
Blake Lively’s It Ends With Us will be released next weekend. It has sold out preview screenings on Wednesday night nationwide and might turn out to be a surprise hit. Eli Roth’s long-delayed Borderlands adaptation also hits theaters, although no one thinks it has a chance of dethroning Deadpool & Wolverine at the top of the box office. What do you think of its box office chances? Let us know in the comments!
In previous episodes of The Best Movie You Never Saw, I’ve talked a little bit about how much I like the eighties and nineties actor Tom Berenger. From Platoon through Shoot to Kill and The Substitute, he was a great character actor with some serious action chops. Were he to have come along in another era, he could have easily been an action star in the vein of Liam Neeson or Gerard Butler, but in his heyday, audiences seemed to prefer larger-than-life heroes. Yet, some of his movies proved to be modestly successful, and one of the more intruding examples is the 1993 movie Sniper, which is probably the best movie you ever saw that got nine sequels.
In it, Berenger plays Master Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Beckett, a legendary sniper with many confirmed kills under his belt. His work nowadays is embroiled in the war on drugs, with him having a particular bone to pick with two former allies gone rogue. One is The Surgeon, an ex-CIA officer who works for Columbian drug lords as a torturer, while the other is DeSilva, a. Rebel sniper who was once Beckett’s protege. In the opening scenes, his spotter is killed. Soon after, Beckett is sent out again to assassinate a Panamanian Rebel Leader, General Miguel Alvarez, and his Columbian drug lord financier, Raoul Ochoa.
Complicating things is the fact that he has to bring a civilian who works for the CIA, Billy Zane’s Richard Miller, into the jungle with him to make sure the killings go according to plan. Miller is a sniper himself, being a former Olympic Medalist and Swat Team sharpshooter. Still, Beckett doesn’t realize until too late that Miller has no kills under his belt and doesn’t have the mental fortitude to complete the mission.
So, here’s what makes Sniper interesting. In your run-of-the-mill action movie, Zane’s Miller would have been one of two things – an innocent or a liability-turned-villain. The film flirts with the latter, with Miller going to pieces the more violent the mission gets. Still, in a change of pace, he eventually rises to the occasion when Beckett is captured, eventually becoming the film’s hero and earning Beckett’s respect and friendship – despite having tried to murder him earlier in the film.
Sniper comes from director Luis Llosa, and it proved to be his ticket to a significant Hollywood career. At the time, he was best known for having directed low-budget Roger Corman action movies and Sniper, despite being distributed by Sony, was an independent film., with a bargain basement budget of just over $5 million. It was shot in Australia and proved to be an inexpensive pick-up for Sony amid a rough run of films after the disastrous reign of Peter Guber and Jon Peters in the early nineties.
At the time, Berenger’s career was in a strange place. He ended the eighties on a high, with Platoon and the comedy Major League both gigantic hits. But the early nineties were rough for him, with the erotic thriller Shattered flopping at the box office, while his character-based turns in international films like The Field and At Play in the Fields of the Lord were barely seen in the U.S.
Sniper would trade on the notoriety of perhaps his most famous role, that of the brutal Staff Sergeant Barnes in Oliver Stone’s Platoon. But, while that battle-scarred veteran was depicted as a sadist, Sniper’s Beckett was a much more heroic military man. While an almost supernaturally gifted killer, he’s haunted by the fact that killing comes so easy to him, harbouring an elaborate fantasy about retiring to a place in Montana which is totally out of his reach. And, while he’s a killer, he has a moral code. He is especially bent on eliminating U.S.-trained professionals who’ve gone to work for the opposition – in this case, The Surgeon and DeSilva.
Sniper would also mark an early starring role for Billy Zane, who was best known then for his unhinged, villainous turn in the superb nautical thriller Dead Calm. Zane does an excellent job of humanizing the way out of his element Miller and boldly allows him to go full-on crazy before pulling back towards the end as he emerges a hero.
Like many cool nineties action movies, Sniper runs a taught ninety minutes and change and doesn’t waste a lot of time before plunging us into the action. The violence is hardcore, the characters are memorable, and the acting is solid.
It proved to be a decent hit for Sony, which released the movie during January dump month, which was known as a no-man’s land for movies back then. It made several times its budget back, just over $18 million, and it earned Llosa a high-profile follow-up, with him being chosen to direct the Sylvester Stallone/ Sharon Stone action flick The Specialist.
At the time, though, Sniper wasn’t seen as much more than a modest performer, although it did well on video. Here’s where the legacy of Sniper gets interesting. In the early 2000s, the DVD boom was MASSIVE, and suddenly, studios decided they would start churning out direct-to-video action movies, a genre they had previously turned up their noses at. Actors who had lost their cachet as action stars, such as Steven Seagal, Wesley Snipes and Jean-Claude Van Damme, found a comfortable niche in this genre, and Columbia decided to exploit the home video success of Sniper by making Sniper 2 nine years after the original.
While low-budget, the studio was able to lure Tom Berenger back, as the actor’s career as a viable lead in theatrical films had tapered off by then. Sniper 2 was a surprise smash on DVD, with Berenger returning for Sniper 3 in 2004. At this point, the DVD boom came to an end, and the series went on hiatus, only to be resurrected once again by Sony with Sniper Reloaded, which centred around the son of Berenger’s character, played by Chad Michael Collins, who’s headlined all the subsequent films. They managed to get back Billy Zane to reprise his role as Miller, with him now a tenor-type figure, and Zane and Berenger seemed to trade off installments in the future, although they were both in Sniper: Ultimate Kill. The franchise has become a DTV staple for Sony and has been popular enough that a rip-off of Steven Seagal’s movie, Sniper: Special Ops, tried to pass itself off as an instalment in the franchise, but don’t be fooled.
In the end, the Sniper film series is an interesting phenomenon. Despite it’s status as a large obscure nineties action movie, thirty years later, the franchise it spawned is still going. Heck, people who watch these new movies may not even know they’re sequels! So, if you haven’t seen it and you like war movies with an action-driven bent, this will be a real find for you.
Just yesterday, we posted a story about Twisters star Glen Powell championing the moviegoing experience and urging people to see his movie in theaters. Indeed, Twisters has proven to be a solid performer for Universal, with it having a surprisingly good $80 million opening and having better-than-expected legs at the box office (although it’s apparently struggled internationally, where it’s only made a fraction of what it has domestically). Despite the solid box office performance in North America, Universal plans to give the film an early VOD release, with Forbes reporting it will be available digitally on August 13th.
Why so soon? It seems that Universal wants to take advantage of all the good word-of-mouth and generate some serious VOD sales, but it can’t be denied this sounds like an ill-advised cash grab. When an event movie like Twisters is made available just a few weeks after it hits theaters, it helps train moviegoers to skip movies theatrically in favor of watching them at home. Twisters being released so soon is a surprise, as high-performing films such as this one (it’s nearing $200 million domestically) are usually allowed to play theatres exclusively for a solid six-week run.
Granted, movies that have underperformed, such as The Fall Guy, Furiosa and Horizon: Chapter 1, have performed well on VOD, and releasing them early makes sense. But, with Twisters still making a lot of money in theatres (it’s going to beat Trap for second place at the box office this weekend), it seems like Universal is undercutting the legs it’s been showing, even if the foreign gross (only about $66 million so far) is underwhelming.
What do you think about Twisters hitting PVOD so soon? Do you think it dissuades people from seeing it theatrically, or does it not really make a difference? Let us know in the talkbacks!
M. Night Shyamalan movies are nothing if not divisive, but it wasn’t always this way. His first three movies, The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs had Hollywood (infamously) calling him the next Spielberg, but a series of poorly received films almost tanked his reputation for good. Yet, against all odds, he was able to return to form embracing a smaller horror aesthetic, as evidenced in movies such as The Visit and Split. Yet, his movies rarely play to universal acclaim, although those who like them tend to REALLY like them. Thus, we want to know what you think Shyamalan’s best work is. Let us know by voting in the poll below!
