You may remember a while back that Lindsay Lohan was supposedly attached to a biopic about Deepthroat porn star Linda Lovelace. That project, sadly, fell through before the crew even had a chance to experience the joy of working with a mature professional like Lindsay. Now we have Lovelace, directed by Howl directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, and starring Lindsay Lohan’s Mean Girls co-star Amanda Seyfried. Ah, Mean Girls, remember when Lindsay was the star and Amanda Seyfried was making her debut playing the dumb chick? There’s really no better illustration of their respective career paths than this.

Anyway, Lovelace is currently looking for a distributor at Sundance, and you can watch a clip below. It features creepy Wes Bentley asking her about the first time she had sex. She talks about her vagina as a delicate flower that opens in the sun and gets all loosened up to the point that it looks like she’s about to take her top off and let the creepy guy take pictures of her. Is this how Terry Richardson does it? Anyway, it’s an inspirational story of self-acceptance that every young girl should watch.

Read the rest of this entry »

Various versions of a Linda Lovelace biopic have been flouncing around town for years, including one version that was to star Lindsay Lohan (and was thus doomed from the outset) and another one that was set to star James Franco and Kate Hudson. Whatever discussions with Franco and Hudson that were going on have apparently since fallen through — I imagine a producer pulled the plug after he actually saw a picture of Kate Hudson — because now the same project, from Howl directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, is in talks with Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard. “Hitler Youth Goes Porno,” they could call it. Hey, that’d be a great idea for a porno.

[from Variety]
W. Merritt Johnson and Andy Bellin wrote the script [for "Lovelace"], which is based on Eric Danville’s book “The Complete Linda Lovelace.”
Peter Sarsgaard, who was last seen as the villain in “Green Lantern,” is in early talks to portray Lovelace’s pornographer husband Chuck Traynor.
Lovelace is the infamous star of the 1972 porn flick “Deep Throat,” which is one of the highest-grossing independent films of all time. She was just a Florida schoolgirl named Linda Boreman when she met Traynor, a would-be filmmaker who transformed her into a world-famous sex star.
After years of being victimized, Lovelace quit the business and divorced Traynor, who she accused of taking advantage of her naivete and coercing her into porn and prostitution.

“Lovelace” is expected to start production in January, the same month that helmer Matthew Wilder’s rival project, “Inferno,” is slated to go before cameras [the one that was supposed to star Lindsay Lohan at on point. -Ed]. Based on Lovelace’s autobiography “Ordeal,” [Laziest. Memoir title. Ever.] film stars Malin Akerman and Matt Dillon as Lovelace and Traynor, as well as Paz de la Huerta in a supporting role. [Ooh, I wonder if she'll get naked.]

Amanda Seyfried is almost as weird a casting choice as Kate Hudson. Lindsay Lohan at least had the looking-like-a-freckly-slut-who-smokes-a-lot part down. Seyfried could definitely pull off “wide-eyed schoolgirl,” but probably not in that the way that they mean.

Here’s the first trailer for Howl, starring James Franco as Allen Ginsberg in a movie that’s part biopic, part chronicle of the 1957 obscenity trial over the Ginsberg poem of the same name, and part interviews with Ginsberg.  Howl was one of the films I saw at Sundance, and I found it to be a pleasant surprise, given that I hate poetry.   You can read my full review here.  Luckily I am kind of a history dork, and the fact that directors Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman used actual court transcripts for the courtroom scenes and actual interviews for the interview sequences helped keep my fact boner engorged.  The trailer wisely doesn’t include any of the scenes where they animate Ginsberg’s poems like a bad music video, which were pretty goofy, and not in a good way.  But overall, it was nice to see a movie about that generation that actually tries to create an honest portrait, rather than being some nostalgic hippie circle jerk.  By the way, “Nostalgic Hippie Circle Jerk” is the name of my dad’s indie band. They sound like a retarded Papa Roach.

Opens September 24th.

O victory forget your underwear we’re free, but those animation sequences sucked

James Franco stars as Allen Ginsberg in Howl, one of the higher-profile films currently playing Sundance. I expected to hate it for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that it’s named after a poem. Spoiler alert: I didn’t.  So why did I expect to hate it?  Let me count the ways.

• It’s named after a poem.
• It’s a biopic.
• Please God not more baby boomer nostalgia.  We respect you wanting to relive the good ol’ days, pops, but it tends to get a little annoying to have to re-debate the effing sexual revolution at every city council meeting, even the ones about bus routes.  We respect the history, but at some point we’d like to redraw the battle lines to reflect things that are actually happening now, and you making 15 movies a year about Bob Dylan doesn’t exactly help.
• Poetry readings.  Oh God, please not poetry readings.  Pretentious, attention-starved pussies sitting in a dark room verbally masturbating while their once proud art form dies one tortured mixed metaphor at a time.  Trust me, I’ve been to a few.
• To put it in South Park terms, I did not want to see another editorial piece from “Aging Hippie Liberal Douche.”
• Words can change the world, maaaan.

Thankfully, Howl was not these things.

Read the rest of this entry »

Time to dust off the ol’ boner time machine and drop those acid stamps kids, because today we’re traveling back to the year 1972 with porno starlet, Linda Lovelace (born Linda Boreman). It has just been announced that Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman of Howl (don’t sh-t your bike shorts, I didn’t know who they were either) will be directing the biopic together, based on the late Linda Lovelace: the legendary, adult film actress who starred in the most financially successful hardcore porn film ever, Deep Throat. Wait, you mean that this isn’t it?
*throws hands into pockets and kicks dirt*

“Lovelace,” written by W. Merritt Johnson (“Temple Grandin,” “In Treatment”), draws from Eric Danville’s bio “The Complete Linda Lovelace” and follows Linda Boreman’s rise to fame as iconic porn star Linda Lovelace of 1972′s “Deep Throat,” and her subsequent transformation into feminist, anti-porn activist Linda Marchiano. [Variety]

Read the rest of this entry »