Posts By Sabrina Rojas Weiss

December 16th, 2011 | 10:29 am by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

Christian Bale’s Run-In With Chinese Police Would Make Bruce Wayne Proud

In another amazing example of actors emulating their superhero roles, Christian Bale attempted to take a stand against the Chinese government yesterday. In Beijing to promote his Chinese state-produced movie, The Flowers of War, the Dark Knight star took an eight-hour drive to visit blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, an activist who’s represented women claiming the government forced them to have abortions or undergo sterilizations. Chen, 40, and his family under house arrest since September 2010, on charges of damaging property and disrupting traffic in a protest.

With a CNN crew in tow, Bale walked up to the lawyer’s house in Dongshigu Village, and was confronted by plainclothes police who shouted, pushed and punched the star in an attempt to get him to stop filming on his Flipcam. “When the dust settled, we counted a broken car, a damaged camera — and a Hollywood star disappointed at — but not shocked by — his failure to see a personal hero,” CNN Steven Jiang reported.
“I’m not brave doing this,” Bale said on the ride back to Beijing, as a police van followed them out of the village for 40 minutes. “The local people who are standing up to the authorities, who are visiting Chen and his family and getting beaten or detained, I want to support them.” Watch the video below.
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December 15th, 2011 | 5:15 pm by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

2012 Golden Globe Nominees’ Least Award-Worthy Moments: Mickey Mouse Club To She-Devil

As soon as the 69th annual Golden Globe nominations were announced this morning, industry folks like Variety began noting how many movie stars (as opposed to fancy ahctorrrs, we guess) are nominated: George Clooney, Brad Pitt and Ryan Gosling aren’t exactly slouches in the acting department, but they don’t turn their noses down at a good romantic comedy heist film either. On the other hand, the more we think about it, the more we think maybe they should have turned down a few gigs. Well, no regrets, Meryl and Glenn and Leo. You turned out OK. Just forgive us for laughing with you at some of the skeletons in your closet/IMDb page!

December 15th, 2011 | 1:00 pm by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

The Hunger Games Is 100 Days Away: Solve The #HungerGames 100 Poster Puzzle Here!

Time is a marvelously, frustratingly relative thing. For those of us who have been waiting for a Hunger Games movie since we read the book in 2008, the 100-day countdown to the film that starts today seems pretty short. But then, when we think about how much we want to the showdown at the Cornucopia, it seems agonizingly long. Well, either way, let’s put on our best Effie Trinket positive attitudes and celebrate, shall we? Today, TheFABlife is honored to be a part of the #HungerGames100 Poster Puzzle Hunt. The picture below is piece #64 of 100 puzzle pieces released out into the many Hunger Games-friendly sites across the Interwebs today. You can download the PDF version of the piece here: http://bit.ly/sJY3Py.

Golden Globe Noms Add Ryan Gosling, Jonah Hill, Rooney Mara To Awards Season Mix

That wacky Hollywood Foreign Press Association is at it again. The HFPA announced the nominees for the 69th Golden Globe Awards, and the list has a few surprises, and lots of things we actually like. The fact that the Globes separate drama movies from musicals and comedies always makes for a rather inclusive group of nominees. Previous 2012 awards season frontrunner The Artist tops the nominations here again with six, and The Help and The Descendants are tied in second place with five apiece.

George Clooney’s busy year has garnered him plenty of recognition here: He’s up for best drama actor for The Descendants, and for best director and best screenplay for The Ides of March. Both films are up against each other for best drama (up against The Help, Hugo, Moneyball and War Horse). In the lead drama acting categories, Ryan Gosling (for Ides) and Rooney Mara (The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo) are the two newcomers. The supporting actor and actress categories also line up with the trends, with the exception of Jonah Hill (Moneyball) and Viggo Mortensen (A Dangerous Method). Seriously, for the others, look back at every other list we’ve published so far.

Bridesmaids, 50/50, The Artist, Midnight in Paris and My Week With Marilyn make up a very solid musical/comedy category. And we can’t even imagine how to place bets for the musical/comedy actresses: Kristen Wiig (Bridesmaids) is the only actress on the list not to be an awards season regular. The musical/comedy actors are a more eclectic bunch: Ryan Gosling (for Crazy, Stupid, Love.), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (50/50), Brendan Gleason (The Guard), Jean Dujardin (The Artist) and Owen Wilson (Midnight in Paris). One more anomaly worth mentioning: Madonna, whose W.E. track “Masterpiece” is up for best song.
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December 14th, 2011 | 3:20 pm by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

Tom Cruise Defies Time, Space At Mission: Impossible Rio Premiere – Watch Live!

Whoa, Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol is taking world domination to a whole new level. We’ve seen pictures of Tom Cruise and company gracing red carpets in Korea, India, Dubai and Germany since last week, and frankly, we’re getting a little jealous here in the States. Just because it’s serious blahdeeblah awards season here doesn’t mean we don’t need our fix of building-scaling, old-man-impersonating, secret-file-excavating Tom as urgently as the rest of the world!

But while we wait for the movie to make its way to our shores, we can get a much better look at today’s premiere in Rio de Janeiro. With the help of Coke Zero, Paramount is live-streaming the red carpet event today at 4 p.m. ET. We can all watch along as Cruise, co-star Paula Patton, director Brad Bird and some other special guests answer questions about all that building-scaling — and better yet, you can also log in and ask your own questions on the Livestream site. Or you can just sit back and watch it here. Electronic dance music legend Tiesto will be working his musical magic at the event too, so you might want to get your cubicle dance shoes on, pronto. Wait, how do you say “pronto” in Portuguese?

[Photos: Paramount]

December 14th, 2011 | 1:27 pm by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

Young Adult’s Patton Oswalt, Jason Reitman Do Their Part For Texter-Free Theaters

OK, so we’re still a little bit mad that Patton Oswalt was whisked away before we got to talk to him at the New York premiere of Young Adult last week. Also, that Charlize Theron’s publicist gave us the evil eye when we asked Charlize about vampires. But whatever, we really, really liked the movie. And Patton steals the show as the man who was literally crippled by high school’s cruelty and tries to act as a voice of reason for Charlize’s nutso character, Mavis.

Anyway, when we were sent this video by Young Adult director Jason Reitman and Oswalt, we decided to share it with you. It’s a spoof on the viral video PSA released by the Alamo Drafthouse theater chain, which purportedly features a recording of a possibly drunk, definitely angry patron who was kicked out of the theater for texting during the movie. We think Oswalt does a fine impression of her. How about you? (Side note: As annoying as it is to see someone texting in the theee-ater, I’d probably be more pissed off about having my movie viewing interrupted by an usher forcibly removing the culprit from his/her seat.)

Also, did we mention we liked Young Adult? Watch our red carpet interviews after the jump.
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December 14th, 2011 | 11:59 am by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

Demi Moore Is Maybe Mad At The Wrong People

The moment Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher announced their split, fans and media took all the attention they’d been spending speculating on whether they’d divorce and diverted it to new important issues like when Demi would change her @mrskutcher Twitter handle and what the new name would be. Well, Ms. Moore, apparently has better ways to spend her time.

“Changing my twitter name isn’t a top priority right now. sorry it bothers so many of u. should I not tweet until I do?does it really matter?” she wrote in a tetchy post last night.

Jeez, Demi, don’t snap at us! We’re not the ones who cheated on you with a 22-year-old.

Still, we recognize that this is a tricky issue. On the one hand, divorce is a very private matter, and we’re sure she’s in mourning over her marriage. On the other, Demi’s and Ashton’s tweets to each other (often written while they were on the couch together) seemed to make their relationship public property. Now, she wants her followers to take a step back, give her some space and let her take her time during this transition. Fair enough, Dems. But we feminists also want you to show the world, eventually, that your Twitter is just fine on its own.

[Photo: Getty Images]

December 14th, 2011 | 11:31 am by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

Paris Jackson’s Ellen Interview Makes Us Want To Protect Her Even More

Shortly after it was announced that Paris Jackson will make her movie debut in the live-action/animated film Lundon’s Bridge and the Three Keys, which begins filming next year, the 13-year-old stopped by The Ellen DeGeneres Show for a chat that will air on Thursday. And immediately upon seeing excerpts of her interview, we want to whisk her away and protect her for a few more years. She’s luminous and poised —- not at all suffering from the awkwardness normal people endure at her age. But she also has an air of gentleness, not unlike her father’s, that makes us worry that the world will want to eat her up too soon.

Paris told Ellen she loves going to school (she and Prince go to the Buckley School in Sherman Oaks) and feels like she has a “regular childhood” these days. “When I came to Buckley, they didn’t know who I was, so I was like, ‘Yes! I have a chance to be normal,’ ” she said, still kind of breaking our hearts.

Ellen asked if she thought her dad’s practice of making her and her brothers wear masks in public is what gave her that chance to be normal, and she agreed, though she wasn’t a fan of it at first.

“I’m like, ‘This is stupid, why am I wearing a mask?’ But I kind of realized the older I got that he only tried to protect us. He explained that to us, too,” Paris said.
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December 14th, 2011 | 10:48 am by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

The Help, The Artist Top SAG Noms – But Stunt Cast Honors Are Way Cooler

The Descendants, The Artist and The Help seem to be three of the biggest films so far in the 2012 awards season race. But the Screen Actors Guild Awards nominations were announced this morning, and The Help and The Artist were leading the nods with three apiece, while the George Clooney flick picked up only two. In the hottest contest, for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture, The Artist and The Descendants are up against Bridesmaids and Midnight in Paris. The actor category recognized Clooney, The Artist’s Jean Dujardin, Brad Pitt for Moneyball, Leonardo DiCaprio for J. Edgar and A Better Life star Demian Bichir. The lead actress contenders are Glenn Close for Albert Nobbs, as well as the same four ladies that have been nominated all season long already: Viola Davis for The Help, Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady, Tilda Swinton for We Need to Talk About Kevin and Michelle Williams for My Week With Marylin. The supporting actor and actress categories also closely resemble every other kudosfest so far (though, sorry, Drive fans, Albert Brooks was left out of this one).

There are plenty of familiar faces in the TV categories too — Boardwalk Empire, Breaking Bad, Dexter and The Good Wife are up against newcomer Game of Thrones. (Good thing there’s no “you win or you die” rule here.)

The most exciting nominations to us? The stunt ensembles! The Adjustment Bureau, Cowboys & Aliens, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and X-Men: First Class are the movie casts up for the prize. And the Dexter, Game of Thrones, Southland, Spartacus: Gods of the Arena and True Blood ensembles compete in the TV category. Wait, can that one be an arena battle, instead of a vote? Pretty please?

Head here for the complete SAG Awards list. The 18th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards will air live on Sunday, January 29, on TNT and TBS at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.

[Photos: Getty Images, Paramount Pictures]

December 13th, 2011 | 6:44 pm by Sabrina Rojas Weiss (@shalapitcher)

Mortal Instruments Author Says Clockwork Prince Sexiness Is ‘Properly Victorian!’

In her first series, The Mortal Instruments, Cassandra Clare combined the comfortably familiar settings of Brooklyn and Manhattan with the underground universe of demons, Shadowhunters, vampires, fairies and warlocks. But for the prequel trilogy, The Infernal Devices, she must have felt that was too easy. The first two books, Clockwork Angel and Clockwork Prince (which came out last week), take place in Victorian London. Orphaned American shapeshifter Tessa Gray and the demon-killing Shadowhunters that take her in are all at the mercy of a rapidly changing world, where scientific advances can be amazing and deadly, and where propriety and gender roles are talked about much more than they’re actually followed.

“The Victorians were much less hung up and repressed than we think of them as,” Clare told TheFABlife of what she discovered while researching the book. “I had always thought of them with these apocryphal stories that they couldn’t say ‘arm’ or ‘leg’ in public and that they covered their piano legs because they were supposed to be naughty. This was all total crap apparently. None of that stuff ever happened. The books of the time period that were really popular are shocking. They were full of sex and violence and betrayal and adultery and sin.”

In Clockwork Prince, Tessa is not only trying to help find and stop the man who seeks to take over the city with an army of clockwork soldiers, she’s also trying to find out the workings of her own heart, torn between tempestuous, deep-dark-secret-holding Will and gentle, probably-dying Jem. And by “trying to find out,” we mean “making out” in some pretty hot and heavy scenes.
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