Here’s Ebert testing out his computer voice in an Oprah segment. If they did this for Oprah, they’d need two programs.  One regular one, and one for when she talks black. |Videogum|

Best Worst Movie, a documentary about the cult popularity of Troll 2, is getting a theatrical release courtesy of the distributor behind Anvil.  I’d like to see Snooki maintain this kind of popularity after 20 years. |FilmSchoolRejects|

OH MY GOD IT’S A NEW PICTURE FROM TRON, HOLD MY MAN PURSE WHILE MY BUTTHOLE PROLAPSES! |SlashFilm|

Nicole Kidman is attached to The Wedding Doctor.  “Kidman would play a relationship analyst who advises couples on their interpersonal dynamics before they marry. But after she meets her latest clients, the doc decides she’d actually be a better match for the groom-to-be, triggering a showdown with his fiancée.”  Sounds like she’ll be channeling Nia Vardalos in her last movie.  Hey, she’s got the neck veins for it. |Vulture|

Hyundai can’t run the commercials for which they’d bought spots during the Oscars, because Jeff Bridges does the voiceover and he’s also a nominee, which is against Academy rules.  The Chinamen are not the issue here, dude.  Also, Dude, Chinamen is not the preferred nomenclature.  Hyundai is Korean. |AdAge|

Zach Galifianakis Interview Excerpt — Lupe Fiasco recently used your name in a rap lyric about his own greatness. How do you feel about that? I heard that. I haven’t heard the song. I will be happy when Dolly Parton uses me in a song, then I’ve made it. There are a lot of rap guys out there.  He said he was the “black rap Zach Galifianakis.” He should have said his name was Black Galifianakis. That would have been a better song. —- I would gay marry you so hard, Chad Farthouse. |NYMag|

Russell Brand is set to star in a remake of Dudley Moore’s Arthur.  I didn’t see that, but given it starred Dudley Moore and Russell Brand, I’m guessing it didn’t involve pulling a sword out of a rock. |THR|

(“YOU CALL THAT SEX, YOU GODDAMNED TWINKLE-TOED PETER PUFFER?”)

In 1999 when he did Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick hadn’t directed a movie since Full Metal Jacket 12 years earlier.  Now Jacket drill sergeant R. Lee Ermey says Kubrick told him what he really felt about Eyes Wide Shut:

“Stanley called me about two weeks before he died,” Ermey told Radar Online. “We had a long conversation about Eyes Wide Shut [which opened five months later]. He told me it was a piece of sh-t and that he was disgusted with it and that the critics were going to have him for lunch [especially that fat f-ck Pete Hammond -Ed]. He said Cruise and Kidman had their way with him – exactly the words he used.”

Asked why Kubrick had allowed himself to be strong-armed by his stars, Ermey said, “He was kind of a shy little timid guy. He wasn’t real forceful. That’s why he didn’t appreciate working with big, high-powered actors. They would have their way with him, he would lose control and his movie would turn to sh-t.”
During the film’s production, Cruise and Kidman were full of praise for the director’s methods and claimed that the finished film was exactly as he would have wanted. [Guardian]

DOCTOR: The end is near, Mr. Kubrick.  Any last words?
KUBRICK: *cough* *gurgle*  *wheeze* Tom Cruise sucks!  *the spirit leaves his body*

Yes, he was a great man.  Reached for comment, Tom Cruise said, “I think we’re all just happy that Mr. Kubrick has gone to a better place.  As long as there aren’t any gays up there.”

Rob Marshall (Chicago) directed Nine, a musical about Fellini‘s 8 1/2, and though it doesn’t open until Christmas, it feels like I’ve been hearing Oscar buzz about this for three months now.  Granted, I hate musicals*.  It’s not a knee-jerk jock thing, I just don’t understand the impulse.  You’re telling someone a story and all of a sudden you decide to break into song?  That’s what homeless people do.  But even given it’s not my cup of tea, what the hell is this?  Really, Kate Hudson singing a song on a catwalk, that’s your Oscar pick?   Does this not feel like a commercial to anyone else?  You can try to sexy it up all you want, but I kept expecting Maria Sharapova’s dog to show up.  Oh Daniel Day-Lewis, first a bum foot, now jazz hands.  Will you ever stop faking disabilities for attention? Keep this up and we might have to date.

*Singin’ in the Rain gets a pass

[via Yahoo]

In honor of Nicole Kidman and Joaquin Phoenix‘s recent announcements that they’d be retiring from acting, NY Mag has put together a little compilation of “retiring actor” quotes.  Here are just some of them:

Clint Eastwood: “[Gran Torino] will probably be my last. I’ll be drummed out of it after this one. Every time you do a movie you think, ‘Aw, that’s enough of that.’”

Freddie Prinze Jr.: ‘I’m going to stop acting in the next few years because it’s just too weird.”‘

Sean Connery: “The time has come because of my rather unfortunate last movie. The cost to me in terms of frustration and avoiding going to jail for murder cannot have continued.”

Gwyneth Paltrow: “I hated acting… Acting and the whole circus around it.”

Lindsay Lohan: “I hate Hollywood and I don’t want to work there.”

Alec Baldwin: “I believe it is time for me to do something else. It’s absolutely, unequivocally time for me to do something else… I can’t do this anymore. It’s all about compromising. I hate work. I f-cking hate it in every way.”

Kevin Spacey: “I don’t care about my personal acting career any more. I’m done with it.”

Nicolas Cage: “I’m tired of it. It has made me reclusive. That is an increasingly gnawing feeling in my body.”

Hayden Christensen: “I don’t find Hollywood interesting, so I’m thinking about studying architecture instead.”

Audrey Tatou: “I know I’m not the best actress in the world and not the worst but I think that maybe I’d be happier doing something that doesn’t leave me so exposed.”

Hugh Grant:: “It’s so long and boring and so difficult to get right.”

Sting: “It’s too much hard work.”

Mena Suvari: “I don’t have a strong desire to be an actress my whole life–it’s just not fulfilling enough for me… If I hadn’t got into modeling, I probably would have studied psychology and might be working on a PHD right now.”

Madonna: “I hate to admit it, but I’ve decided to give [acting] up.”

Uma Thurman: “I am thinking about becoming a stay-at-home mom.”

Tom Selleck: “A dog was killed — trampled to death — and it really disturbed me… I remember saying to my agent, ‘If this is what it’s like, I’ve got to find another line of work.”

Elizabeth Hurley: “I decided I couldn’t really do movies any more.”

Matthew Broderick: “I should probably quit. Acting is a tough living.”

Rachel Bilson: “I love the career I have chosen, but I’d be quite happy as a housewife, at home with the kids.”

In between the two or three hours a day they have to pretend to be astronauts and princesses, actors spend all their time eating free food and having their every need attended to by an army of assistants, so I can see why they’d want to trade it all in for something real, like watching Power Point presentations or emptying colostomy bags. Really, my only question is for Tom Selleck, and what the hell movie he was talking about in his quote.

My guess?  Quigley Down Under.

In this new poster for Baz Luhrmann’s Australia (click to enlarge), Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman take “mindf-ck” too literally, while an Aborigine hangs out nearby to make sure you know they’re in Australia.

[via Filmonic]