You know her and love her on Lifetime’s Project Runway, but this Super Model and mom is also one of the most daring celebrities in front of a camera today.
At 36, some models look to be a bit more discreet but Heidi is holding nothing back. Here are a few pictures from Allure magazine’s April edition. Enjoy….
Here is the most recent Iron Man 2 trailer. It’s promoting a blockbuster scheduled for an early May release, but it shows way too much. Consider this a disclaimer, for as much as everyone likes to see whatever is available, trailers such as these tend to take the bloom off the rose.
It feels almost like we’re seeing the whole movie but edited for the duration of an elevator ride. You’ve been warned.
It’s been said that this is perhaps the easiest Academy Award season to handicap in a very long time. Ironic, given that the field was opened up this year to ten Best Picture nominees.
The Daily Helping would like to weigh in on it’s picks…not only who should win, but who deserves to win.
Best Supporting Actress
Penelope Cruz, Nine
Vera Farmiga, Up in the Air
Maggie Gyllenhaal, Crazy Heart
Anna Kendrick, Up in the Air Mo’nique, Precious
Mo’nique should win and will win. The role has elevated the comic and television star to the next level and it’s likely we will see her in more films down the road.
Best Supporting Actor
Matt Damon, Invictus
Woody Harrelson, The Messenger
Christopher Plummer, The Last Station
Stanley Tucci, The Lovely Bones Christoph Waltz, Inglourious Basterds
This is another slam dunk. Christoph Walz has been collecting acclaim and acting awards for the past four months. He wins his oscar within the first 15 minutes of Tarantino’s incredible film.
Best Actress Sandra Bullock, The Blind Side (oy!)
Helen Mirren, The Last Station
Carey Mulligan, An Education
Gabourey Sidibe, Precious
Meryl Streep, Julie & Julia
This is the year that Sandra Bullock wins an Oscar with the great Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren among the nominees. The Blind Side was a very popular movie and Streep and Mirren provided forgettable performances. This is one of those times where the award rewards someone for what the film industry holds dear…box office. Bullock put a lot of butts in the seats and so expect to see her win.
Best Actor Jeff Bridges, Crazy Heart
George Clooney, Up in the Air
Colin Firth, A Single Man
Morgan Freeman, Invictus
Jeremy Renner, The Hurt Locker
Jeff Bridges has won a few awards lately for his performance as a down and out singer/songwriter. Having secured nearly every critical award as well as the SAG and Golden Globe; Bridges has momentum over the likes of Clooney and Renner.
Best Director James Cameron, Avatar
Kathryn Bigelow, The Hurt Locker
Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Lee Daniels, Precious
Jason Reitman, Up in the Air
A lot of people believe this is a two horse race. Cameron has helmed an innovative blockbuster that took nearly a decade to make, if you believe the story that he needed to invent the technology in order to make his movie. Challenging him for the top Director’s award is his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow who brought us the most effective and entertaining movie about the Middle Eastern conflict to date. The Daily Helping anticipates Cameron will win this award in lieu of the Best Picture.
It’s also worth mentioning that the director who should win…is Quentin Tarantino, who provided a truly original and powerful film. The Hurt Locker was suspenseful, but Inglorious Basterds was all that and more.
Original Screenplay
Mark Boal, The Hurt Locker Quentin Tarantino, Inglourious Basterds
Alessandro Camon & Oren Moverman, The Messenger
Joel & Ethan Coen, A Serious Man
Pete Docter, Bob Peterson, & Thomas McCarthy, Up
Tarantino should win this. It would be nice if the Coen’s were recognized for their incredible film, but Basterds is perhaps Tarantino’s best script since Pulp Fiction.
Adapted Screenplay
Neil Blomkamp & Terri Tatchell, District 9
Nick Hornby, An Education
Jesse Armstrong, Simon Blackwell, Armando Ianucci, & Tony Roche, In the Loop
Geoffrey Fletcher, Precious Jason Reitman & Sheldon Turner, Up in the Air
This may be the only award that Up in the Air wins on Oscar night. For much of the year, this was considered a strong contender for Best Picture.
Foreign Language Film Ajami (Israel) El secreto de sus ojos (Argentina) The Milk of Sorrow (Peru) Un Prophete (France) The White Ribbon (Germany)
The Daily Helping admits to seeing none of the nominees. We won’t even guess.
Animated Film Coraline
Fantastic Mr. Fox
The Princess and the Frog
The Secret of Kells Up
Up will win. It’s been a runaway critical success since the film opened many months ago. After premiering at Cannes, all other animated efforts seemed to be respectable efforts. Coraline is a distant second and Wes Anderson’s Fantastic Mr. Fox failed to find a much deserved audience. The Secret of Kells has had limited release here in America and may surprise everyone.
Best Picture Avatar
The Blind Side
District 9
An Education The Hurt Locker
Inglourious Basterds
Precious
A Serious Man
Up
Up in the Air
Like Jeff Bridges, The Hurt Locker has momentum. It was released last summer and so it stood the likelihood of being forgotten, but has enjoyed terrific word of mouth and after having just won Ms Bigelow the Director’s Guild award…it’s hard to imagine Avatar or Basterds taking the top prize.
The Daily Helping would like to be on the record as one of the few who could easily accept Tarantino’s revisionist war movie as the best of the year. As powerful as The Hurt Locker may be….Inglorious Basterds will be a movie that will likely be considered over time to be the superior picture. Kind of like the year (1980) when Ordinary People won best picture over Raging Bull.
There is no mistaking American Apparel advertising with anyone else. (Unless of course impersonation is the goal). It creates and prints its own advertisements with an obvious provocative edge. Their image is inspired by the company CEO Dov Charney.
Their print campaign is considered to be some of the best in the retail industry and also the most sexually charged. The models often go without make-up and a minimal amount of clothes except for the item being sold. …like panties or a workout leotard. Their blemishes, imperfections and often waife-like body types are what distinguish American Apparels ads from the rest. Concern that the company is “sexualizing” under age models have led to a few bans.
Many of the models in American Apparel’s overtly sexual advertising are recruited by Charney and his marketing department. Plucked from the street, the adult film industry or literally working in the company’s stores, the models are immortalized in grainy, poorly lit photo spreads Some critics have labeled their models as “cocaine-chic”, and “pre-pubescent” (though Charney and American Apparel confirm that all their models are consenting adults just looking to sell a few tee-shirts).
The Daily Helping would like to provide a closer look at American Apparel’s ad style and offer two venues. One is the year old compilation put together by the website StyleCrave.com. They offer up what was at that point, the 50 Sluttiest American Apparel ads to have graced magazine, billboards or bus kiosks.
American Apparel has also provided an online archive for their models, both male and female and so if you’re a true fan of the company, you may have found yourself a personal favorite. Valaria, for example may have wowed you with her “printed tank thong bodysuit” but her photo spread with the “Oversized Raglan cycle shorts” may come as a wonderful surprise.
The film news and trailer site, ComingSoon.net has passed on some unconfirmed gossip that Elizabeth Banks (Role Models, Zack and Miri Make a Porno) is in talks to co-star with the very popular, Bradley Cooper, (The Hangover, Valentine’s Day) in the upcoming dark drama, Dark Fields.
It’s a brilliant novel by Alan Glynn (which up until recently, was his only published novel). A down-and-out writer (Cooper) procures a top-secret pharmaceutical drug from his old dealer who claims to have gone straight. The pill makes you smarter. Really smart. Smart like you can learn Portuguese in the time it takes to read a phrase book, which in this case is about thirty-minutes. He uses his new-found ability to obtain obscene financial and social success but eventually discovers that the drug has lethal and lasting side effects. Then there are those who want the drug for themselves…
A year ago, news of the film adaptation started and then stopped with news that Shia Labeouf was lined up to play Cooper’s part. The casting choice was nothing short of sabotage not to mention a shift in the lead character’s age by about twenty years. Labeouf was filming “Transformers” at the time and found himself in a car accident which caused some fairly serious damage to his hand. Shia was out of Dark Fields and a collective sigh of relief could be heard by the book’s devoted fans.
The Dark Fields is one of those novels that you can’t put down, once you give it a look. It’s also a novel that you envision as a film, while you’re reading it.
The Daily Helping says you need to find the book at your local bookstore or online vendor. It’s a fantastic reading experience and best read before the movie trailer dilutes your pleasure.
UPDATE: Robert DeNiro is scheduled to join the filming of Dark Fields in May.
It’s common knowledge that a lot of films are born with a single pitch. A writer or director may have an idea for a film but the window to sell the story is very small. It helps if you can refer to other, successful films where the plot and characters are well known.
A pitch for a horror movie may be something like…”Part Omen, part Jaws, part Bull Durham.” The producer and studio will then sit back and digest the combination and see if it sounds marketable.
“It’s part Rambo, part The Sting!” A combination that sounds like money.
The Daily Helping loves a good pitch as much as the next blog, but there are certain pitches that sound too good to be true. We think we found one that sounds pretty darn good.
“Middle Men” is an independent film that just found a home at Paramount following lots of buzz at the recent Santa Barbara Film Festival. What’s the pitch on “Middle Men”? According to Variety’s Todd McCarthy, it’s “Boogie Nights” meets “Goodfellas”.
That sounds pretty good.
It has a fantastic cast. Luke Wilson (“Royal Tenenbaums”, “Old School”), James Caan, Giovanni Ribisi and Gabriel Macht. In what is called the “true story” of Jack Harris, a husband and father who helps re-organize struggling but potentially lucrative businesses. He goes to work on a company that launches one of the very first view for pay porn sites. His clients (Ribisi and Macht) are geniuses who are suddenly flush with money, and up to their eyes in women and drugs. Harris (Wilson) must try to keep the business on the rails (not those kind of rails) and in doing so, becomes entangled with the Russian mob, a porn star, and the FBI.
Now that the movie has a distributor, a trailer has finally emerged. Take a look and see if this excites you as much as it does us. It’s an extended trailer and we’re pleased to say, Not Safe For Work. (Look for great cameos by Kelsey Grammer (Frazier) and the great Kevin Pollack (Usual Suspects, A Few Good Men). Don’t ask when it’s going to be released because you won’t like the answer: Fall of next year.
The Daily Helping found this picture coming out from hundreds at NY city’s Fashion Week. Two favorites, Susan Sarandon (The Hunger, Bull Durham) and Demi Moore (Striptease, GI Jane) are front row center and obviously discussing something that needs some hands on description. Readers are encouraged to submit suggestions as to what these two women might be saying.
