It's a special Do You Like Olga Kurylenko Movies? edition of DYLPM? this week, during which Wesley lies on a rug that does not tie any rooms together and he and Alex discuss Oblivion, To the Wonder, twists that aren't really twists, the beauty of a Sonic drive-in at dusk, and how hard it is to do a whole podcast in Terrence Malick Interior Monologue Voice. Spoiler alert: It's really hard.
Pretty much the one thing I remember from Quantum of Solace (which is, let’s be honest, by far the most forgettable Daniel Craig Bond film) is Ukrainian model/actress Olga Kurylenko striding across the desert in a designer ball gown. Seeing as roughly 80 percent of Bond girls are as interchangeable as men’s magazine covers, I consider that a noteworthy accomplishment. Since then Kurylenko has continued to battle Bond-ian fungibility with eclectic credits in films like hyperkinetic writer/director Martin McDonagh’s Seven Psychopaths and Mitch Glazer’s show about the good ol’ days of Cuban crony capitalism, Magic City. This summer, Kurylenko stars in two films that, if not for her, would never even be mentioned in the same breath: Terrence Malick’s latest art house/spiritual experience, To the Wonderwith Ben Affleck, and the sci-fi mega-movie Oblivion with Tom Cruise.
That’s not so much eclectic as paradoxical, but paradoxical sure can be fun. I chatted with her about twirling through Malick's latest film, Cruise’s incomparable running abilities, and the one thing that a big Hollywood blockbuster and a Malick movie have in common. Read on below!
It's the end of an era. A culture-defining, couch-jumping, Matt Lauer–berating, Brooke Shields–bullying, publicist-sacking, psychiatry-denying, temporarily-career-enfeebling, tabloid-enriching, adorable-clonebaby-producing, Beckhams-befriending, hairy-fat-suit-wearing, Burj-Dubai-scaling, Def Leppard–singing era. The end of an era we all hoped would last a billion years, but which, in the end, spanned a mere five. But doesn't it seem like they've been together forever? You know what they say: Time flies when you're secretly recording your escape plans in a journal you hide inside a hollowed-out Build-A-Bear in the nursery.
“What the hell is so wrong with a little yum-yum?” This is a question asked early in the second episode of Magic City, the Starz network’s grandest attempt yet to go tit-for-tat (and then tit again; there’s really an enormous amount of nudity) with the cable big leaguers, which premieres tonight. The answer given is, of course, “nothing.” And it’s abundantly clear that show creator Mitch Glazer, a former rock critic turned screenwriter (Scrooged) and producer (Lost In Translation), agrees. This entire series, set in a sprawling Art Deco hotel in Miami Beach at the tail end of the Eisenhower years, is positively soaked in yum-yum. It’s there in the languorous opening sequence in which a nude nymph doggy-paddles through a chlorinated nirvana. It’s there in the in the beveled tumblers of rum and whiskey being sloshed by Brylcreem mobsters and the bare-breasted dames who service them. And it’s certainly there in the opulent, pastel-hued sets, everything gleaming and glistening promisingly in the bright Florida sun. The problem, of course, is that there’s more to life – and good television – than a steady diet of yum-yum.
Brian Grazer has replaced the scandal-plagued Brett Ratner as the producer of the Oscars telecast. The prolific movie producer’s first job will be to find a replacement for Eddie Murphy, who quit his hosting gig following Ratner’s departure. Seeing as Grazer happens to also be a producer on Tower Heist, here’s one totally sensible solution for host: Brett Ratner. Grade: A [Deadline]
