WEIRDLAND

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Josh Hartnett (Love Scenes) video




Watch Josh Hartnett (Love Scenes) video in Entretenimiento  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com Josh Hartnett (Love Scenes) video

Jake Gyllenhaal at the Edible Schoolyard NYC's Spring Benefit



Jake Gyllenhaal stepped out for the Edible Schoolyard's inaugural Spring benefit dinner, called "A Garden Grows in Harlem," in NYC last night. It may have been their first-ever benefit dinner, but Jake and the Edible Schoolyard have been working together for over three years. He was joined by other big names like J.Crew's Jenna Lyons, Martha Stewart, and NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg for the event, which benefits the creation of a rooftop garden and kitchen classroom at Manhattan's P.S. 7 in East Harlem.


Jake Gyllenhaal attending the Edible Schoolyard NYC's Spring Benefit on April 15, 2013 in New York City


Jake, who was the honoree of the charitable evening out, also scored a recent accolade in the Big Apple. Jake made his New York stage debut last Fall in the play If There Is I Haven't Found It Yet, and he is nominated for a Lucille Lortel Award, which honors the best in Off-Broadway theater performances. Source: www.popsugar.com

Monday, April 08, 2013

Bogosse Fashion, Clothes for Hotties





Jake Gyllenhaal in GQ Style (last additions in the IHJ gallery)


Josh Hartnett in GQ Style magazine


Jake Gyllenhaal in Details magazine, 2012


Josh Hartnett in Details magazine, 2003


Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway on the cover of Io Donna Magazine, 2010


Gemma Ward & Josh Hartnett in Vogue magazine, D&G campaign


Bogosse is a word used in the fashion world whose meaning comes from 'beau gosse' (handsome boy)


Frank Michel "Sheraton" Pink men's shirt with floral design contrast
inside the collar, placket and cuffs


Beatles Collection: Tee shirt inspired by The Beatles. Full lyrics from the song "Hard Days Night" printed on the back. Lightweight and comfortable. By English Laundry 100% Cotton

If you are looking for a reliable retailer of fine apparel online, check out TrendRepublic.com. You will be able to find in their site all of the best men's fashion brands including Bogosse, Jared Lang, Ted Baker, and English Laundry. They offer free shipping on their men's clothes fashion and a great selection, along with exceptional custome service.

Saturday, April 06, 2013

Jake Gyllenhaal narrates 'The Great Gatsby' audiobook version


Jake Gyllenhaal in Backstage Magazine photoshoot

Amidst all the hoopla surrounding the forthcoming Leonard DiCaprio version of "The Great Gatsby," don't overlook this news: Audible.com is releasing next Tuesday an audio version of the book read by Jake Gyllenhaall.


You can pre-order the book here. Listen, below, to the famous opening to F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel:

The Great Gatsby UNABRIDGED Listen to The Great Gatsby, then pick up right where you left off with the Kindle book Source: www.nydailynews.com


The Great Gatsby Trailer
In theaters May 10th.


Baz Luhrmann's "The Great Gatsby" follows would-be writer Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) as he leaves the Midwest and comes to New York City in the spring of 1922, an era of loosening morals, glittering jazz, bootleg kings, and sky-rocketing stocks. Chasing his own American Dream, Nick lands next door to a mysterious, party-giving millionaire, Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio), and across the bay from his cousin, Daisy (Carey Mulligan), and her philandering, blue-blooded husband, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton). It is thus that Nick is drawn into the captivating world of the super rich, their illusions, loves and deceits. As Nick bears witness, within and without of the world he inhabits, he pens a tale of impossible love, incorruptible dreams and high-octane tragedy, and holds a mirror to our own modern times and struggles.

Friday, April 05, 2013

The Place Beyond The Pines - Opening Scene


The Place Beyond The Pines - Opening Scene starring Ryan Gosling, Bradley Cooper and Eva Mendes, directed by Derek Cianfrance.

Tamsin Egerton ("Leggy Blonde") video


Tamsin Egerton ("Leggy Blonde") video: A video dedicated to the beautiful and talented actress Tamsin Egerton.


Songs "Leggy Blonde" by Flight of the Conchords and "Mambo Sun" by Marc Bolan

Thursday, April 04, 2013

Happy Anniversary, Heath Ledger!


Heath Ledger and Jake Gyllenhaal in "Brokeback Mountain" (2005) directed by Ang Lee


Heath Ledger, Happy Birthday! Tribute


"It goes without saying that had Heath Ledger not tragically died of a drug overdose, he almost certainly would have played a big part in The Dark Knight Rises, and the film would have been an entirely different beast as a result. The Joker would likely have been the main villain once again, being freed from Arkham Asylum, or would have been a co-baddie with someone like Bane. The final film even alludes to various points at which The Joker could have appeared; when Blackgate Prison is liberated, Arkham could also have been sprung, and the kangaroo court judge played by Cillian Murphy’s Scarecrow felt like it would have been perfect for The Joker. As already mentioned, The Joker is just a flat-out better villain Bane, and so putting the two together or simply featuring The Joker at all would have made the film even better than it was." Source: whatculture.com

Wednesday, April 03, 2013

Romantic Comedies & Eligible Actors


"(500) Days of Summer" is an anomaly in the modern romantic comedy world. The film is completely through the perspective of a male going through a break up and accurately portrays it too. The main criticism of this film, and this film has received quite a backlash since its debut, is the fact that Zooey Deschanel’s character seems to follow the trope of the manic pixie dream girl in which the romantic interest is cute, quirky and changes the male’s previously brooding and depressed male protagonist. But, that is ignoring the complexity of this film. Like I said, this is through the male perspective after a break up.


Except for about a scene or two, Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character is always in the scene. He is seeing Summer through his eyes thus the disjointed chronology. During a breakup, you reflect upon your relationship and it starts in cycles. You see all the things that were perfect about this woman. Then all the things that went wrong and so on and so forth. This is the first film that shows that in my memory and the fact that they do not get together at the end is invariably satisfying as, like most relationships with a little distance to them, they did not belong together. It does not succumb to a deus ex machina ending and shoehorns in a happy ending, just that he moves on. Source: whatculture.com


Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel: If you watched (500) Days of Summer, you are acutely aware of how cute co-stars Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt would be as a couple. Just because they couldn't make it onscreen doesn't mean they wouldn't be completely compatible in real life, especially since the two have been buds for a decade. I mean, c'mon, look at their over-the-top adorable homeade video cover of Nancy Wilson's "What Are You Doing New Year's Eve?" — they may swear they are just friends, but that's how many of the best marriages start out.


Emmy Rossum and Jake Gyllenhaal in "The Day After Tomorrow" (2004) directed by Roland Emmerich

Jake Gyllenhaal is handsome, smart and— by all accounts — a total catch, yet the 32-year-old actor can't seem to find a partner with staying power. What's up with that? We thought we heard wedding bells in the air during his and Reese Witherspoon's long courtship, but alas, she broke things off and moved on with her now husband, Jim Toth. Similarly, 26-year-old Emmy Rossum is known as one of Tinseltown's most charming talents, but she has been unlucky in love since her marriage to music executive Justin Siegel ended in 2010. Are we hopeless romantics to believe two total sweethearts such as these could finally give each other the happily-ever-after they so deserve? Source: www.sheknows.com


5. '40 Days, 40 Nights' (2002)
Remember when Josh Hartnett was, like, the next big thing? Sure you don't, but this comedic vehicle had the "Pearl Harbor" hunk gallantly giving up sex (including self abuse) for the entirety of lent, leaving him frustrated and frenzied when he falls in love with the dizzyingly attractive Shannyn Sossamon. They manage to get around his purity pledge through clever use of flower petals, which takes them to new romantic heights.


1. 'When Harry Met Sally' (1989)
Perhaps the most famous of all sexless sex scenes involves Meg Ryan teaching Billy Crystal a thing or two about the theatricality of the fairer sex in the sack. Proving a point of how easy it is to fake a BIG O, Ryan sets down her pastrami sandwich and builds to a thunderous, earth-shaking climax… then, without batting an eye, has a dainty bite of potato salad. For those of you wanting to know, yes, the pastrami at Katz's Delicatessen is that good. Source: www.nextmovie.com

Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Smoking Soldiers in Film


1. Jake Gyllenhaal (Jarhead; LCpl/PFC Anthony Swofford)

This 2005 movie chronicles Anthony's journey from boot camp to being a sniper on the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, then retreating back to civilian life. As good as Jake looks in that uniform, there's an entirely other suit he looks even better in... a cross between a Santa suit and a birthday suit, with Jake dancing around wearing only a Santa hat. Moviegoers agreed as well; the film received generally positive reviews and earned nearly $100 million at the box office.


3. Josh Hartnett (Black Hawk Down; SSG Matt Eversmann)

This 2001 flick's adaptation of the book of the same name did plenty to piss off Somalians, but was the first major box office smash of Josh's career (and likely his best role). Chronicling the events of the Battle of Mogadishu and the U.S. efforts to capture a Somalian warlord is all fine and dandy, but we couldn't stop staring at Josh long enough to really pay attention to the plot.


5. Matt Damon (Saving Private Ryan; Private First Class James Francis Ryan)

Even as a hardened soldier, Matt still has a babyface going. This epic film set during World War II had a huge ensemble cast, but also delivered the goods in terms of quality. It raked in an astounding $481 million at the box office during its 1998 release and went on to be nominated for 11 Academy Awards.


14. James McAvoy (Atonement; Robbie Turner)

Based on the novel of the same name, James beat out a slew of A-list actors for the role, including Jake Gyllenhall. He described as Robbie as one of the most difficult characters he's ever played, but the hard work paid off. The film was a commercial success and ended up being nominated for six Academy Awards, including Best Picture. James has been riding the wave ever since and has four movies scheduled for release in 2013.

Source: www.hollywire.com

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Jake Gyllenhaal considered to replace Jude Law in "Jane Got A Gun"


Jake Gyllenhaal is one of the actors in the frame to replace Jude Law in Jane Got A Gun. The LA Times reports that a replacement for Jude is now being sought, with the End Of Watch star, Tobey Maguire and Jeff Bridges among the names being considered for the role.


Natalie Portman has already been cast as a woman who runs away from her villainous outlaw husband (previously played by Jude) and is forced to team up with an ex-boyfriend - played by Joel Edgerton - to protect her family. Source: www.independent.ie


Jake Gyllenhaal in 'End of Watch' Portraits - Toronto Film Festival, on September 10, 2012


Jake Gyllenhaal, Empire magazine photoshoot, November 2012


Jake Gyllenhaal in Entertainment Weekly photoshoot

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Jake Gyllenhaal & Michael Peña discuss shooting for "End of Watch"




Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña discuss who has the sharpest shot is in this interview for the home entertainment release of David Ayer's End of Watch.

Josh Hartnett ("Desolation Row") video

Josh Hartnett ("Desolation Row") video from Kendra on Vimeo.


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Analysis of "The Black Dahlia": Script vs Film


"The Black Dahlia" (2006) directed by Brian De Palma, based on one of James Ellroy's most famed novels, employs Elizabeth Short's story mainly as backdrop of an intoxicating noir atmosphere (Vilmos Zsigmond's cinematography was nominated to an Oscar) which manages to encapsulate the pulse of the decadent Los Angeles evoked in the classic 40s pulp film and novels. After a rigged boxing fight in benefit for the LAPD, Dwight 'Bucky' Bleichert (Mr. Ice) -played by Josh Hartnett-, teams up with Lee Blanchard (Mr. Fire) -played by Aaron Eckhart. Josh Friedman's screenplay follows like a monitor these two retired boxers, now detectives who are assigned to investigate Elizabeth Short's gruesome murder.

In this analysis of "The Black Dahlia" I want to bring up some clues that could have been overlooked due to the complexity of the characters and juxtaposition of the subplots. Although quite a few critics and disappointed Ellroy's readers didn't regard De Palma's version as doing justice to Elizabeth Short's life and misfortune, I think we should examine closely the original script to appreciate those details which couldn't be translated into the film due to time restriction (the director cut extends to 3 hours).


Scarlett Johansson plays a Lana Turner lookalike, the mysterious yet wordly blonde Kay Lake, Blanchard's girlfriend.


Madeleine Linscott (played by Hilary Swank) is a wealthy femme-fatale who was acquainted with Elizabeth Short and other aspiring actresses around La Verne’s lesbian club. She becomes Bucky's confidant and lover in order to shift the police's attention from her unstable family clan.


Madeleine Linscott: "[My father] bought rotten lumber and abandoned movie facades from Mack Sennett and built houses out of them. He's got firetraps all over LA registered to phony corporations... His 'good friend' George? Disfigured in a car crash while running Daddy some errands."

Emmett Linscott [Madeleine's father]: "1920. Hollywood was a cow pasture, but the silent flickers was booming. Georgie got work as a lighting man, and me building houses. Georgie got me introduced to Mack Sennett and I helped him build that housing project he was putting up -Hollywoodland- underneath that godawful sign."


There is a motif throughout "The Black Dahlia" that lays out Hollywood as a murky scene, a source of excruciating travails and obscenity. Also there is an element that disturbingly connects this film to "The Big Knife" (a sharp indictment of Hollywood directed by Robert Aldrich in 1955, inspired by John Garfield's real tribulations) which is symbolized by a wall painting featuring a freakish sad clown in both films, being in "The Big Knife" an anonymous portrait and in "The Black Dahlia" the portrait of Gwynplaine -a disfigured character from Victor Hugo's novel "The Man Who Laughs".


There is a scene where Lee, Kay and Bucky are watching a big screen projecting "The Man Who Laughs" (1928), a horror silent film directed by Paul Leni, based on Hugo's novel. Gwynplaine falls in love with Dea, a blind girl who reciprocates him despite of his hideous grin, caused by Dr. Hardquannone's surgical slash of his mouth. In the novel Gwynplaine and Dea drown in the sea and die.


George Tilden (Bill Finley) and Ramona Linscott (Fiona Shaw) are the equivalent of Gwynplaine and Dea, a pair of unhinged creeps ill-suited for living around normal people who find the same fate than Hugo's characters. The difference is the couple of freaks in "The Black Dahlia" are murderers.

Georgie was disfigured by Emmett Linscott as an act of vengeance when he discovers Madeleine is fathered by Tilden (an aspiring actor too) and later proceeds to carry a secret relationship with Madeleine when she grows up into adult age. This perverse affair provokes bouts of madness in Ramona, a pill addict "hophead", whose hatred for her daughter and failed romance with Georgie lead her to become Elizabeth's unexpected murderer.

"Georgie liked to touch dead things. I mean, his father was a surgeon", Emmett Linscott reveals to Bucky in the final part of the film. This is one of the most hidden clues in De Palma's exposition. In Georgie's mind, Elizabeth Short was already dead when she met him in the bungalow near Beachwood Canyon. Why this character would think so of an apparently lively, feisty girl like Elizabeth? Georgie Tilden had been a "handsome bastard" before his dreams of going to Hollywood were cruelly cut off by Mr. Linscott. His heart figuratively stopped at that moment of his disfigurement because his shallow and naïve ambitions perished at Emmett's jealous hands.


So Georgie figures Elizabeth is soulless after having seen her starring in a stag film. We could interpret the film's subjacent idea that Hollywood exerts on their regular players a deeply traumatic effect at best or even a moral extinction: Tinseltown as a hell of lost identities and mimetic souls.

There is an allusion in the play 'The Value of Names' to Clifford Odets [author of 'The Big Knife'], John Garfield's onetime friend. "He was dead and gone even before he was dead," says the play's lead actor Jack Klugman of Odets, who named names in 1952 following a revival of Golden Boy and hours before John Garfield died. "They used to tear his posters off the theaters," Klugman said of John Garfield's female admirers.


Josh Hartnett caused a similar furor between the female demographics half a century after John Garfield's peak of fame and death, especially through the war epic Pearl Harbor (2001), about the attack in 1941 propelling the USA into World War II. In his early 20s, Josh Hartnett shared some of Garfield's appealing traits, and his screen image represented an undeniable magnet for girls worldwide. Described by director Bruce Beresford as "tall and impossibly handsome", Josh Hartnett had a supple body and one of the most boyishly masculine faces in Hollywood: shy hazel eyes, and an unmistakably sexy smile due to the unique form that his zygomaticus sparked an illusion of dimples. "Hollywood doesn't need my love" was one of Hartnett's teasing quotes.


As the noir detective, Hartnett plays maybe his most masculine character so far in his career, despite Bucky enduring several moments of self-doubt and low self-esteem while struggling to find a solution to the Dahlia's puzzle murder.


"Many film noirs, however, do not just reproduce that 'melodrama of beset manhood' but also identify its source in the hero [...] by emphasizing the unreal appearance of the femme fatale which foregrounds her imaginary dimension. The power (and hold) of the femme fatale over the main character derives from the fact that she is an imaginary construct, so that an important part of the suspense derives from the question whether and how the main character will be able to liberate himself from the hold of his own imaginary". -“Crime, Guilt and Subjectivity in Film Noir” (2001) by Winfried Fluck.


Bucky experiences a meltdown when Madeleine confesses to him a one-night stand with the Black Dahlia: "I felt like I was sinking; like the bed was dropping out from under me. Madeleine looked like she was at the end of a long tunnel, captured by some kind of weird camera trick." 'Betty and I made love once that one time last summer.' Scared by her confession, he leaves Madeleine, although she begs him: “Bucky, stay, sugar, stay.”


"To a fighter, sex tastes like blood and resin and suture scrub. I wondered if some day that would ever be different," had been Bucky's ruminations before Kay held him mesmerized and later he added clandestine sexual trysts with Madeleine. In one of the early scenes, Bucky even jokes he's been saving himself for Rita Hayworth when Kay asks him if he has a girlfriend. That's another reference to the glitz and mythology of Hollywood in a film that is oddly more obsessed with the dark side of Tinseltown than Elizabeth Short's unsolved case. Some screen tests where Mia Kirshner plays a distressed Elizabeth (with a woeful face and sad smile) work as a romantic aubade amidst a confusing plot that meanders into vague descriptions of a throwaway film industry and police officers' corruption.


Madeleine, always acting with malice aforethought, is intent on driving Bucky insane, playing with his morbidly romantic fixation on Elizabeth. Although in the film Bucky's obsession is more understated than in the novel, in the original script we see that side explicitly: "That night I pictured myself the way I wanted Elizabeth to picture me -her knight in shining armor, a reborn two-bit harness bull who cracked the biggest unsolved homicide in California history. A war hero, a heavyweight champion."


One of the most important themes in noir is the confusion of identity. In that sense, "The Black Dahlia" is one of the purest examples in the whole genre. The femme-fatale in the story, Madeleine, identifies with Elizabeth's looks. Lee identifies Elizabeth with his little sister, Bucky sees himself reflected in Elizabeth's personality. Even Kay sees herself dragged in this twisted litany of obsession: "[Lee] loved us. And I love you. And if you hadn't seen so much of yourself in her you'd realize how much you loved me". Bucky has fallen in love with Elizabeth's image: "Bye-bye Betty, Beth, Betsy, Liz, we were a couple of tramps, too bad we didn't meet before 39th and Norton, it just might have worked, maybe us would've been the one thing we wouldn't have fucked up past redemption".


"Then there's the decomposing face of Lee 'smiling like the Dahlia, with worms creeping out of his mouth and the holes where his eyes used to be.' Ellroy built 'The Black Dahlia' (1987) around the great physical idea that clinches the first impression he gives of Beth's corpse: 'the mouth cut ear to ear into a smile that leered up at you, somehow mocking the rest of the brutality inflicted'. This 'death leer', the book's dominating image, joins the comic to the macabre and joy to anguish because of the critical distance it puts between victim and tormentor. [...] great art requires distancing. It's perspective and slant that makes us wonder if Beth, despite the brutal pain inflicted on her by them, didn't get the last laugh on Ramona and Tilden, that sorry pair whose sole claim on our memory comes from their connection with her." -"Like Hot Knives to the Brain: James Ellroy's Search for Himself" (2006) by Peter Wolfe

"They found him [Georgie Tilden] croaked in a parking lot downtown, just twelve blocks from where he'd dumped Betty Short. Just croaked. I hoped the evil ate him from the inside out, filling him with blackness..." (Bucky's Voice Over).


One of the most interesting scenes is the final confrontation between Madeleine and Bucky in the film, absent from the script and the novel.

Madeleine: "I think you’d rather fuck me than kill me. But you don’t have the guts to do either. You’re a boxer, not a fighter. You chose me over her. You’ll choose me over him. You’ll never shoot me. Don’t forget who I look like. Because that girl, that sad, dead, bitch. She’s all you have."


Bucky comes off as an irreducible Chandlerian detective in his duel against the ruthless femme-fatale, shooting her on the spot.


"I felt this reptile had to go down. And it’s not like he cleverly covered up the murder," Brian De Palma explains Bucky killing Madeleine, a sudden change from Ellroy's original ending.


"She’s from a very wealthy family, so it’s probably not going to end well for Bucky." De Palma: "No."

So again, we reconnect another couple of misfits (Madeleine as a trashy nympho declassed from the high society, Bucky a flawed detective who supressed evidence in the case) with Dea and Gwynplaine from "The Man Who Laughs" and their bleak destination.

Article first published as Script v Book v Film: The Black Dahlia on Blogcritics.