Ray Liotta recently did an interview with Examiner to promote The Iceman, in which he co-stars opposite Michael Shannon as hitman Richard Kuklinski (who, sidenote, was once supposed to be played by Channing Tatum until the author threatened to take back the rights). Hard to say whether Liotta and the interviewer just didn’t get along, or if Liotta was trying to communicate some sarcasm that didn’t quite come through, or if he was simply still in character as a gangster. But man, the guy doesn’t pull any punches.

Assorted quotes:

Dorri Olds: Do you think Richard Kuklinski was a sociopath?
Ray Liotta: What’s a sociopath?

Someone incapable of empathy and lacking a social conscience.
Any guys who kill for money, they chose that as their business. Mafia guys are all just insecure people who want their money. They’re like little seven-year old kids when they don’t get their way. I knew guys like that growing up in New Jersey.

Did you hang out with wiseguys?
Why would you ask me that?

Because you said you grew up with them in New Jersey.

—

Was your character, DeMeo, portrayed accurately in “Iceman”?
From what I read about DeMeo, he was a bad guy. There’s a book [For The Sins of My Father] about him by his son. He wasn’t well liked. They [Mafia guys] used him when the higher ups didn’t want to do it [murder]. He just kept begging to get made.

Do you think he was gay?
Not f*cking gay. Why would you ask that?

It’s generally a bad sign when the interview subject asks “why would you ask me that?” twice in the first five minutes. This whole thing sounds so gloriously ornery.

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For a long time, I had nothing against Shia Labeouf. He bore the brunt of a predictable backlash for being an overexposed actor in a series of underwhelming films, but that wasn’t really his fault, you don’t have that much control over that stuff when you’re a young actor. At times we respected his honesty. But the more we see of him lately, the more he comes off as this fast-talking, cliché-spouting existential buffoon. One thing I’ve never thought is, “hey, you know who’d be great in this movie? Shia LaBeouf.”

Which brings us to: How do you explain the fact that he’s now worked with Spielberg, Oliver Stone, Lars von Trier, Michael Bay, and others, yesterday signed on for a film opposite Robert DeNiro, and today joined a WWII movie starring Brad Pitt? Someone find this kid’s agent, because that guy deserves all of the cocaines.

With Brad Pitt attached and Sony on board to distribute, WWII-set “Fury” has begun building its ensemble cast with Shia LaBeouf in talks to co-star. David Ayer (End of Watch) is directing the pic from his own script. The story follows the commander of a Sherman tank and its five-man crew on a mission behind enemy lines in April 1945 as Nazi Germany collapses. LaBeouf would play a member of the crew. Lensing is set to begin in September with a Nov. 14, 2014. [Variety]

That seems like a pretty cherry role in a year that’s seen him plagiarize an apology from an Esquire article and get laughed at on Letterman. There’s only one explanation for this. SORCERY!

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After being bumped from its original December 2012 release, the

I haven’t read the book, but from what I understand, it’s an oral history of a zombie apocalypse told after the fact. The movie is set during the zombie outbreak, with Brad Pitt trying to find out what caused the zombies to become zombies, while stuff explodes around him as graphs and helpful expository dudes tell us how many people have died and Brad Pitt runs and runs. It all feels very Nic Cage. Have you noticed that in movies, “racing against the clock” always involves a lot of actual racing? They should just hire the world’s foremost scientist, Usain Bolt.

Meanwhile, Brad Pitt’s daughter in this may win the son-in-Homeland Memorial Award for being a verbose rube. “Daddy, I’m scared!” Wait, you mean you’re scared of the horde of murderous zombies trying to beat down the door as we cower in this tiny panic room? Gee, what a fresh observation, honey! This changes everything! You’re just the one to lead us out of this mess, we’ll start by declaring you the Empress of Obvioustown.

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Come on, not cool, zombie bro.

The Super Bowl generally serves as the first launch pad of the New Year for Hollywood to show us what huge action films they have in store for us. And since the NFL’s biggest game is typically the year’s largest BROment, we can probably expect a lot of Iron Man 3 throughout the Super Bowl 47 broadcast this Sunday on CBS. However, we now also know that World War Z is getting in on the action, because Apple has released the film’s official Super Bowl teaser spot, and let me tell you…

It’s exactly the same as everything else we’ve seen, from the first trailer of this production mess to the first 8 minutes that someone described to us. Seriously, the Super Bowl spot doesn’t reveal anything else about the film at all, other than Brad Pitt and the family are in the car, a cop breaks their sideview mirror off, Pitt’s all like, “WTF, broseph?”, something explodes and then everybody freaks out because zombies are faster than Usain Bolt.

But at least they save the Constitution. Otherwise the Gates family will never find the zombie gold.

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“Quick, everyone to the Apple store!”

There’s really not much to say about the disaster in a disaster that is World War Z, the film adaptation of Max Brooks’ outstanding zombie novel that isn’t actually based on the book, that we haven’t already said before. The basic recap is that the film rights caused a bidding war between production companies owned by Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, with the latter eventually securing the rights, and that was probably the only positive highlight of an otherwise doomed film production.

With World War Z reportedly way over budget and experiencing a litany of production problems, fans of the literary version have grown incredibly skeptical of the film’s prospects, and we’re all basically endlessly crying over this movie, despite the fact that we haven’t seen it. Thankfully, someone finally got his eyes on a clip of WWZ, specifically the first eight minutes, and it sounds like we basically have more to complain about now.

That someone is Badass Digest’s Devin Faraci, who was able to peep the exclusive footage at Harry Knowles’ birthday movie marathon. I’m just going to assume that my invitation was lost in the mail.

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