"Oh, the Urban Outfitters accessories rack? Right over there."

Forget the Academy Awards, the Golden Globes or even the People’s Choice Awards. When it comes to determining who America’s favorite actor is, the only proper way to do it is with an online poll of 2,237 adults representing four age groups, conducted in just 7 days. And through that foolproof scientific method, we now know that Johnny Depp is America’s favorite actor for the second year running, according to the latest Harris Poll.

Better luck next year, Tom Sizemore!

Age, region, gender and political party and leanings mean different favorite actors. Men cite Clint Eastwood as their favorite while women say it is Johnny Depp. Echo Boomers (those aged 18-34), Gen Xers (aged 35-46) and Baby Boomers (aged 47-65) all say Johnny Depp is their favorite actor while for Matures (those aged 66 and older), George Clooney is their favorite.

Read the rest of this entry »

Now I realize this is going to sound farfetched, but apparently there’s more than just a few ways to burn through a large amount of money very quickly: purchasing excess amounts of black tar heroin, investing poorly in a sh**ty rapper’s vodka company, cramming all that money up a body cavity -or, if you happen to reside in Hollywood, you can always just grossly overpay the star of your next big (supposed) blockbuster. Yeah, that’s also a great way to get rid of a bunch of cash -but just how much money constitutes a bunch? Well, in an apparent attempt to answer that question (and inspire mass suicides everywhere) Forbes just released their 2010 list of Hollywood’s Most Overpaid Actors. You know, just to really help put into perspective how truly underpaid you are at your day job. And just to lay any rumors to rest, neither Nic Cage or Billy Zane made the list this year, sorry.

To formulate their list, Forbes first started with the 36 highest-earning actors from Hollywood. To qualify, during the past five years, each actor would have to have starred in, at least, three films that opened in more than 500 theaters. After this initial categorization, they then began to factor in various other details like penis length and bench press ability.

We used data gathered for our annual Celebrity 100 list to calculate each star’s estimated earnings on each film (including up-front pay and any earnings from the movie’s box-office receipts, DVD and TV sales). We then looked at each movie’s estimated budget [...] and box-office, DVD and television earnings to figure out an operating income for each film.

We added up each star’s compensation on his or her last three films and the operating income on those films, an divided total operating income by the star’s total compensation to come up with a return-on-investment number. The final number represents an average of how much a studio earns for every dollar paid.

Forbes fails to mention how many interns bludgeoned themselves to death with graphing calculators, during the research, but I can only assume the final count was north of ten.

Top 10 Overpaid Actors after the cut.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re wondering why I just cranked up my Soul Asylum record, it’s because they just released a trailer for Tony Scott’s Unstoppable, a film about a runaway train, never comin’ back; wrong way down a one-way track.  You can watch it now, but after it’s over, we’ll need to put on flannel and discuss social issues.  Denzel Washington and Star Trek‘s Chris Pine star as the interracial buddy cops train conductors, with Pine as the snot-nose rookie fresh out of the academy, and Washington as the grizzled veteran who’s too old for this sh*t.  Suddenly a freight train loaded with chemical waste takes off down the tracks with no conductor, and as the beautifully big-breasted Rosario Dawson helpfully informs us, it’s like a missile the size of the Chrysler building, and it’s headed straight for the orphanage/puppy shelter. Basically, it’s like if Lethal Weapon, Die Hard with a Vengeance, and Speed got wasted and triple kissed at a frat party.

Verdict?  Mehhhh.  Tony Scott is pretty hit or miss. His last three movies were Domino, Deja Vu, and The Taking of Pelham 123, about as dismissive wank-worthy a group as you’ll find.  Man on Fire was fun, but I can’t imagine watching Denzel Washington catch a train from behind with another train will be nearly as enjoyable as watching him shove a bomb up a guy’s ass and let it explode (call me old-fashioned). And as far as movies with the plots of mid-90s alt rock songs goes, I’d definitely rather see “Possum Kingdom.”

Bronson Pinchot has made a career out of playing effeminate foreigners, and he must be set, financially, because he burns some serious bridges in this new interview with the always great Onion A/V Club.  Not that that’s a criticism, it’s awesome the 1% of the time when actors are actually honest.

On Risky Business:
We thought Tom [Cruise] was the biggest bore on the face of the Earth. He had spent some formative time with Sean Penn—we were all very young at the time, Tom was 20, I was 23. Tom had picked up this knack of calling everyone by their character names, because that would probably make your performance better, and I don’t agree with that. I think that acting is acting, and the rest of the time, you should be you, but he called us all by our character names. He was tense and made constant, constant unrelated homophobic comments, like, “You want some ice cream, in case there are no gay people there?” I mean, his lingo was larded with the most… There was no basis for it. It was like, “It’s a nice day, I’m glad there are no gay people standing here.” Very, very strange.
Same thing with Eddie Murphy—I remember somebody calling and saying, “You’ll never guess who was just caught with a transvestite!” [Laughs.]

Read the rest of this entry »

In a perfect world, we could judge The Book of Eli totally on its own merits without comparing it to The Road.  But as a wise man named Will Smith once said, “Welcome da Earff.”  It looks like they took The Road, a book that was unique in its approach to the apocalypse, and said, “Hey, know what’d make this way more awesome?  Sword fights and bible references and Mila Kunis!”  Thereby turning an unconventional approach to conventional subject matter into a really conventional approach to conventional subject matter.  Or as I like to call it, a Vin Diesel movie.  The upside is, instead of Vin Diesel, this one has Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman and Cheddar Bob from 8-Mile.  Still, could use more tigers.