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Shia LaBeouf Guilty Of Smoking, Yelling At Actors At Broadway Show


Shia LaBeouf Alan Cumming Michelle Williams

Shia LaBeouf has pleaded guilty to being a general nuisance at a Broadway show in which he lit up cigarettes and yelled at the actors on-stage. LaBeouf's representatives said the former Transformers star had gotten treatment for an alcohol problem since his arrest in June and a judge agreed that if he stays in treatment for three months and out of trouble for six, the case would be dismissed.

Shia LaBeoufShia LaBeouf at the Berlin Film Festival in February

LaBeouf, 28, was watching Alan Cumming and Michelle Williams in a revival of Cabaret when he started lighting up cigarettes, swearing at security guards and shouting at the actors. He shouted "do you know who I am?" when escorted out, according to court papers.

Continue reading: Shia LaBeouf Guilty Of Smoking, Yelling At Actors At Broadway Show

Critics On 'Cabaret': Alan Cumming And Michelle Williams Receive Near Rave Reviews


Michelle Williams Alan Cumming

Come to the cabaret, old chum, come to the cabaret – this one has Michelle Williams and Alan Cumming in it. Williams has just made her Broadway debut and, well, Cabaret is still awesome – no surprises there. The revival of the beloved musical, a staple in every university theater group’s repertoire, opened at t at the newly transformed Kit Kat Klub at Studio 54 on Broadway (254 West 54th Street). By Friday morning, the critics should have already ripped into it. Surprisingly, most musical theatre buffs only had good things to say about the Roundabout Theater Company’s revival.

Michelle Williams
Reviewers were conflicted on Michelle Williams' Sally.

Ben Brantley, The New York Times: "A little more than 16 years after it first opened, and only a decade after it closed, it feels as if the popular Roundabout Theater Company production of "Cabaret" never left Studio 54, where it reopened on Thursday night. Alan Cumming, who won a Tony as the nasty M.C. in 1998, is back, offering a slightly looser, older-but-wiser variation on the same performance...The most conspicuous difference is the bright blond actress portraying Sally...The promiscuous, hard-partying Sally is now embodied by a very brave Michelle Williams, who doesn't look all that happy to be there. I'm assuming that's more a matter of character interpretation than of personal discomfort, but it does put sort of a damper on the festivities...” So if you like your Sally Bowles unwaveringly upbeat, this adaptation might not be for you… then again the character is very world-weary, so the acting choice seems apt.

Continue reading: Critics On 'Cabaret': Alan Cumming And Michelle Williams Receive Near Rave Reviews

"Smells Like An Old Backyard": Pharrell Williams' 'GIRL' And Other Celebrity Fragrances


Pharrell Williams Peter Andre Alan Cumming Justin Bieber Antonio Banderas Nicki Minaj

The celebs aren’t satisfied with us mere mortals wanting to just look like them, apparently we have to want to smell like them too. The craze for celebrity fragrances is still raging, with Pharrell William’s creating his own scent in collaboration with Comme des Garçons Parfums. The fragrance will be named ‘GIRL’, after his new album, which currently holds the UK Number One spot in the album charts.

pharrell williams girl Pharrell's fragrance will be called 'GIRL'

Pharrell joins the long line of celebrities that have already developed their own fragrances, some names you'll expect to see, others you won't!

Continue reading: "Smells Like An Old Backyard": Pharrell Williams' 'GIRL' And Other Celebrity Fragrances

Any Day Now Review


Extraordinary

There's a subtle blast of righteous anger in this pointed drama, which finds present-day relevance in a true story that's more than 30 years old. The focus is on normal people who are caught up in an unjust system that leans toward ignorance and bigotry even if child's life is in danger. And watching them muster the strength to fight back is utterly riveting, because they're flawed and daunted exactly like we would be.

It takes place in 1979 Los Angeles, where Rudy (Cumming) works as a nightclub drag artist. When his hard-partying neighbour (Allman) abandons her Downs Syndrome son Marco (Leyva), Rudy steps up to take care of him. But he needs to find a longer-term solution, so he turns to Paul (Dillahunt), a divorced lawyer who has barely admitted to himself that he's gay. Rudy and Paul have only tentatively started a relationship, so Paul is reluctant. But Marco needs a guardian, so he helps Rudy get foster custody and moves them into his own home to help improve their legal status. But as they become a family, it becomes increasingly difficult for Paul to remain closeted, and when his sexuality emerges the court takes Marco away.

Even when the film shifts into a courtroom drama, it balances the drama with real-life humour and authentic emotional intensity. Watching these two compassionate men face systematic homophobia is pretty shocking, but filmmaker Fine never lets this become an issue movie: it's an involving story about people standing up for what's right. And by anchoring everything in the relationships, the film remains warm, relaxed and likeably awkward. This is mainly because Cumming and Dillahunt make such an unusual couple as the unapologetic queen and the strong-but-silent repressed guy.

Continue reading: Any Day Now Review

Michelle Williams Joins Cabaret For Broadway Debut


Michelle Williams Sam Mendes Alan Cumming

Michelle Williams will star in a Broadway production of the musical Cabaret as seductive and troubled singer Sally Bowles. The production will mark William's Broadway debut.

Michelle Williams
Michelle Williams at the L.A. premiere of Oz the Great and Powerful.

Famously, Liza Minelli took the role of Bowles starring opposite Michael York in the 1972 film adaptation. The musical is based on The Berlin Stories by Christopher Isherwood, and tells the story of American cabaret singer Sally Bowles who performs at the Kit Kat Klub in Berlin. Brian Roberts, a naive British graduate, is befriended by the vivacious Bowles and the two have an affair set against the backdrop of interwar Germany. 

Continue reading: Michelle Williams Joins Cabaret For Broadway Debut

Alan Cumming’s One Man Macbeth – Critics Divided


Alan Cumming

To portray any of Shakespeare’s characters is both a dream and a challenge for any actor. But to play every single character in Macbeth might represent a lot of actors’ nightmares, and would certainly be their biggest challenge. But it’s a challenge bravely attacked by Alan Cumming, who performs his one-man version of Macbeth to mixed reviews from the critics.

“In a truncated version of the play that clocks in at less than two hours,” writes The Associated Press for Yahoo, starting their review by calling the play ‘stunning’, “Cumming is both Macbeths, the three witches, Macduff, Duncan, Malcolm, Banquo and a half dozen others. Plus, he not only plays all the major Shakespeare roles, he also does the whole thing as a deranged mental patient.” He might have wanted to stop reading reviews there, though, as not everyone was equally impressed. “Mr. Cumming’s delivery of the major soliloquies is forthright and lucid but oddly weightless: the character’s descent into depravity has been sketched in brisk, light strokes that dissipate quickly, as if drawn in invisible ink. At times Macbeth — who speaks a full third of the lines in the original text — seems to be a supporting player in his own tragedy, and his death arrives with a bit of a whimper,” say The New York Times.

Alan CummingOne man show - Cumming is Macbeth (and everyone else)

Continue reading: Alan Cumming’s One Man Macbeth – Critics Divided

Liza Minnelli Re-Visited Cabaret For Her 67th Birthday


Liza Minnelli Alan Cumming

Beloved actress Liza Minnelli celebrated her 67th in style.

The Broadway veteran didn’t just have a party like any old celebrity, she marked the occasion with a special one-off performance alongside another staple of the Big White Way, Alan Cumming. The pair performed a number of famous duets on Wednesday, before dashing off to celebrate elsewhere. The show, which was just the first of a pair of gigs at NY Town Hall, reprised Liza and Alan’s cabaret-like performance at a Fire Island nightclub last summer.

Of course, the infamous Cabaret was performed (making us musical theatre fans extremely jealous of the ticket holders) and the entire show turned into a Cabaret reunion of sorts. But this time, the roles were reversed, as Cumming took on Liza’s part in Mein Herr, which is one of the best-known numbers Sally Bowles (Liza Minnelli) performs in the original musical, while she herself sang the traditionally male Willkommen. Overall, the night was a lot of fun for both fans and performers. "We're just crazy about each other," Minnelli told Reuters after the show. "It felt very intimate, like being with a bunch of friends." After the intimate performance, Liza managed to out-party any of her younger colleagues, alongside a group of close friends at New York’s Copacabana.

Continue reading: Liza Minnelli Re-Visited Cabaret For Her 67th Birthday

The Smurfs Review


OK
A simplistic approach means that this charming adventure-comedy will only appeal to very young children. While it's lively and enjoyably silly, there's just not enough wit in the story or characters, nor enough skill in the animation.

Life is idyllic for the tiny blue Smurfs, whose village is hidden from view in a European valley. But the evil-but-hapless wizard Gargamel (Azaria) wants to capture their magical essence and, when he finds their village, he chases six of them through a vortex that dumps them into Manhattan. Lost in the city, the Smurfs befriend Patrick (Harris) and his pregnant wife Grace (Mays), whose help they need to both escape Gargamel and regenerate the vortex to get home.

Meanwhile, Patrick's under pressure from his boss (Vergara) to come up with an ad campaign.

Continue reading: The Smurfs Review

The Smurfs Trailer


Standing three apples high, the tiny Smurfs live happily and peacefully in their medieval Smurfs village. However, their quiet way of life is threatened by the evil wizard Gargamel and his long-suffering, wise cracking cat Azrael. Gargamel wants to become the most powerful sorcerer in the world and to do that, he needs the Smurfs' essence.

Continue: The Smurfs Trailer

The Tempest Trailer


For over 12 years Prospera and her daughter Miranda have been exiled by Prospera's brother to a baron island where they live a life of solitude accompanied only by spirits and one non-spiritual occupant; Caliban, the son of a witch who died just before the arrival of the two human souls.

Continue: The Tempest Trailer

Burlesque Review


Very Good
It's difficult to imagine a more outrageously camp movie than this glittery romp, and fortunately there's a sense that the cast and crew understand this.

By never taking their ludicrous plot seriously, they've made a true guilty pleasure.

Fed up with dead-end Iowa, Ali (Aguilera) heads for Hollywood. Despite having no experience or training, she's sure she can make it as a singer-dancer. After a series of rejections, she stumbles upon the Burlesque Lounge on Sunset, run by jaded diva Tess (Cher) with the help of her long-suffering buddy Sean (Tucci). Ali charms sexy barman Jack (Gigandet) into a barmaid job, while keeping her sights on the stage. And she's also wooed by Marcus (Dane), a developer who's trying to buy the financially strapped club.

Continue reading: Burlesque Review

Burlesque Trailer


Ali is a girl who's desperate to break away from her small-town life. Seeking a new start she buys a one way ticket to LA and lands a job waitressing at a club called The Burlesque Lounge, the club owner and headline act is a lady called Tess, though she was willing to give Ali a break by offering her the cocktail waitress job, all Ali wants to do is perform on stage. Enamoured by the lavish and flamboyant costumes and striking choreography Ali is sure she would be a perfect addition to their troupe. Tess doesn't see her potential but a few other of the club workers know Ali's secret; she can sing - a small girl with a big voice.

Continue: Burlesque Trailer

Spy Kids Review


Excellent
There are few respectable filmmakers in the world that would take on the difficult challenge of creating a children's movie. I don't mean those hack directors who just sit behind the camera and yell "action" and "print," but those few who take on the challenge of writing, directing, producing, and even editing a successful film for the underage masses. Creating a fantasy world with non-abrasive violence, imaginative sets and props, and engaging characters to follow is a tough process. With Spy Kids, Robert Rodriguez proves that his handling of adult fare extends to kids' stuff, too.

My favorite films are from my childhood -- Flash Gordon, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, Mary Poppins, the Muppets movies, Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, and The Never-Ending Story -- and they all presented an impossible world made real only by the power of imagination. Spy Kids ranks up there with the best children's films by creating implausible scenarios made from martial arts stunts, gee-whiz spy gadgets, robots built entirely of huge thumbs, a holodeck-like room filled with rolling clouds and stretches of golden sands, and providing total escapism for both kids and adults.

Continue reading: Spy Kids Review

Get Carter (2000) Review


Weak
Forget Get Carter. Instead... get me a cup of coffee.

What the hell has happened to all good American action movies? Did I unknowingly miss a meeting somewhere? When did all of the bad-ass, kicking butt and taking names, gun-toting, crazed, vengeful characters of the 1980s -- from such films as Commando, Cobra, Predator, Raw Deal, First Blood -- suddenly turn into innocent, compassionate, sensitive, teary-eyed knuckleheads. The only place to turn these days for an honest action film is towards the East -- and I don't mean New York City.

Continue reading: Get Carter (2000) Review

Plunkett & Macleane Review


Good
In 18th century Britain, they sure did have a lot of fireworks and loud rock 'n' roll music...

Continue reading: Plunkett & Macleane Review

Eyes Wide Shut Review


Extraordinary
Mr. Kubrick would have been upset. I take that back. He would have been totally pissed. I'll get it out up front: Our screening was interrupted by a fire alarm, which sent the entire San Francisco press constituency outside for a full hour, and ultimately forced us to miss about five minutes of the movie, right in the middle, where it was getting juicy. Not to mention that whole digital alteration thing. Ugh.

That aside, this is one hell of a movie. A somewhat bizarre cross between A Clockwork Orange and The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut is the work of a meticulous craftsman -- a luscious and rich odyssey through the streets of New York, and into the minds of a couple of its residents.

Continue reading: Eyes Wide Shut Review

Son Of The Mask Review


Terrible
You may have read about film critics who quit because they just can't tolerate the poor quality of the movies they're watching. I'm willing to bet more than a few threw down their notepads, cursed their career choice, and considered graduate school options after watching Son of the Mask.

The long-delayed sequel to the 1994 Jim Carrey hit is a terrible movie. Let's not mince words. It's an awful, unoriginal, infuriating, and endless mess. The always likeable Jamie Kennedy stars as Tom Avery, a struggling animator whose life is in flux. His wife, Tonya (Traylor Howard from TV's Monk), wants a baby badly, but the immature Tom doesn't want that responsibility. He's content to play with his precocious dog, Otis, draw on his sketch pad, and kid around with his tolerant wife.

Continue reading: Son Of The Mask Review

Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera Review


Terrible

Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals are garish, puerile melodramas with all the elegance and sincerity of a Super Bowl halftime show -- and his brash, brassy songs have the depth and nuance of action-movie explosions.

Director Joel Schumacher was responsible for one of the most tawdry, terribly cliché-riddled action-movie bombs in Hollywood history -- 1997's "Batman and Robin."

When this pair teamed up to bring Webber's "The Phantom of the Opera" to the big screen, it was a match made in hell.

Continue reading: Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom Of The Opera Review

The Anniversary Party Review


Good

Making a Hollywood story with a decidedly un-Hollywood flair, co-writers, co-directors and co-stars Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan Cumming take a casual, almost guerilla approach to their collaborative conception called "The Anniversary Party."

It's a shoestring production shot cinema vérité style in which these two gifted journeyman actors play a shaky show biz couple throwing themselves a sixth anniversary bash even though they've just recently and tentatively reconciled after a big infidelity blow-up.

Their guests -- movie stars, directors, industry types and hangers-on -- seem vaguely uncomfortable congratulating Sally and Joe Therrian (Leigh and Cumming) on their longevity under the circumstances. But in a town where fakery is the norm, it's easy for everyone to put on a happy face -- even the non-industry next-door neighbors (Denis O'Hare and Mina Badie) who have been invited only in an attempt to ease tensions over a barking dog dispute that's threatening to turn legal.

Continue reading: The Anniversary Party Review

Spy Kids 3d: Game Over Review


Weak

Since the vast majority of the audience for "Spy Kid 3D: Game Over" has probably never seen a 3D movie with cheap, old-fashioned blue-and-red-lensed cardboard glasses, here's a three-point primer for proper enjoyment of any flick in this format:

1) Sit toward the middle of the theater. Because of the twin-image nature of 3D projection, the more off-center you are from the screen, the more you'll see eye-straining "ghosting" of images through your glasses instead of proper depth of field.

2) The left lens (red) always seems uncomfortably darker than the right (blue). Get used to it.

Continue reading: Spy Kids 3d: Game Over Review

Josie & The Pussycats Review


Weak

If you were to take the 1998 Spice Girls movie called "Spice World," then remove all the self-deprecation, all the homages to "Hard Day's Night," and all the surprising wit that made it such a great guilty pleasure, what you'd be left with would closely resemble the new "Josie and the Pussycats" movie -- although the results would still be less formulaic.

A live-action revival of the girlie rock band from the Archie comics and Saturday Morning cartoons, "Josie" is a hypocritical satire of MTV conformity that carefully tippy-toes around its mockery of the fickle pop music market so as not to rock the boat with its target audience -- those very same conformist teenagers at whom it pokes fun.

As the movie opens, the private plane carrying a boy band called Dejour (ha ha, very funny) has just been crashed on the command of their evil manager Wyatt Frame (Alan Cumming), who had to get rid of the boys after they discovered the record company's subliminal messages planted in their songs.

Continue reading: Josie & The Pussycats Review

Plunkett & MacLeane Review


OK

A swashbuckling, bodice-ripping, 18th Century romp with a dance club pulse, "Plunkett and Macleane" is a slick, modern, action-comedy dropped daringly into the ambiance of a costume drama.

Based very, very loosely on the criminal career of two English highwaymen who became notorious hijacking the wealthy in London's Hyde park, the film stars hip, hot, "Trainspotting" alumni Jonny Lee Miller and Robert Carlyle as the pair of gentlemen thieves, something akin to Butch and Sundance fused with Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Miller plays James Macleane, a scam artist and aspiring blue blood, determined to buy his way into 1700s high society. He finds his ticket in an unlikely place -- in the company of Will Plunkett, a former apothecary who turned to street-level petty crime after going bankrupt. Their scheme: Put the polish on Macleane and send him into the most posh parties, where he'll scope out who's worth robbing on their way home. The duo then don masks and stage hold-ups, Macleane being so seductively polite to his prey (especially the ladies) that he's dubbed "the Gentleman Highwayman."

Continue reading: Plunkett & MacLeane Review

The Flinstones In Viva Rock Vegas Review


Good

"The Flintstones in Viva Rock Vegas" is one unapologetic goofball of a movie. It makes no pretense of brains or decorum. It's dumb, screwy and proud. Yabba dabba doo!

A prequel to 1994's live-action "Flintstones" feature, it stars Mark Addy from "The Full Monty" as Fred and Stephen Baldwin's Barney (playing him dumb as a box of rocks and obviously enjoying it no end) in their younger days when they were courting Wilma and Betty (Kristen Johnston and Jane Krakowski).

The only thing really resembling plot revolves around the fact that Wilma is a down-to-earth debutante who would rather go bowling than to a fancy dress ball -- an attitude greeted with much high-hattedness when she brings Fred around to meet her parents.

Continue reading: The Flinstones In Viva Rock Vegas Review

Eyes Wide Shut Review


Good

Despite all the tongue-wagging about philandering shrinksand other rumor mill jazz, "Eyes Wide Shut" turns out to notbe entirely about sex after all.

Instead its something even more shocking by Hollywood standards-- a complex and intimate study of a couple surviving a very big bump intheir marriage.

There is sex. Plenty of it. But more frequently there'salmost sex and fantasy sex when a small marital spat between a rich,handsome couple of nine years escalates into a confession that begets adownward spiral jealousy, obsession and, most of all, temptation.

Continue reading: Eyes Wide Shut Review

Get Carter Review


OK

If the rain-slicked new Sylvester Stallone revenge fantasy flick "Get Carter" seems a little familiar, it's with good reason.

It could be that the picture is a remake of a gnarly 1971 film of the same name (starring Michael Caine, who appears in this one too).

It could be that the bad-guy-going-after-worse-guys plot -- about a Las Vegas mob enforcer determined to find and snuff the people who whacked his estranged brother -- isn't all that different from the story of a hard-as-nails parolee avenging his daughter in last year's "The Limey."

Continue reading: Get Carter Review

Alan Cumming Awkwardly Discovers And Refutes His 'Secret Marriage' To Keanu Reeves


Alan Cumming Keanu Reeves Melissa Etheridge

Alan Cumming, the Scottish actor known for 'Goldeneye' and 'Spy Kids', was recently confused by the knowledge that he and Keanu Reeves were married. The bisexual actor was astonished by the news in 2004, mostly due to the fact that he had never met the 'Matrix' star. 

Related: Critics On 'Cabaret': Alan Cumming And Michelle Williams Receive Near Rave Reviews

In a recent interview, Cumming stated "Someone had sent me this thing from this website and it said I had got married to Keanu. We got married in a secret ceremony, I wept throughout the entire thing, he was very butch about it all and Melissa Etheridge was there and she hummed one of her songs whilst we were getting married. Can't remember, but some other gay people were there."

Continue reading: Alan Cumming Awkwardly Discovers And Refutes His 'Secret Marriage' To Keanu Reeves

Alan Cumming

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Alan Cumming

Date of birth

27th January, 1965

Occupation

Actor

Sex

Male

Height

1.78




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Alan Cumming Movies

Battle of the Sexes Movie Review

Battle of the Sexes Movie Review

A dramatisation of the real-life clash between tennis icons Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs,...

Strange Magic Trailer

Strange Magic Trailer

In a magical world of fairies and goblins, two worlds live secluded from each other,...

Any Day Now Movie Review

Any Day Now Movie Review

There's a subtle blast of righteous anger in this pointed drama, which finds present-day relevance...

Smurfs 2 - I'm Too Smurfy Trailer

Smurfs 2 - I'm Too Smurfy Trailer

The Smurfs are back in a brilliant movie sequel that sees them take on evil...

The Smurfs 2 Trailer

The Smurfs 2 Trailer

The Smurfs return following a harrowing experience lost in New York while being pursued by...

The Smurfs Movie Review

The Smurfs Movie Review

A simplistic approach means that this charming adventure-comedy will only appeal to very young children....

The Smurfs Trailer

The Smurfs Trailer

Standing three apples high, the tiny Smurfs live happily and peacefully in their medieval Smurfs...

Advertisement
The Tempest Trailer

The Tempest Trailer

For over 12 years Prospera and her daughter Miranda have been exiled by Prospera's brother...

Burlesque Movie Review

Burlesque Movie Review

It's difficult to imagine a more outrageously camp movie than this glittery romp, and fortunately...

Burlesque Trailer

Burlesque Trailer

Ali is a girl who's desperate to break away from her small-town life. Seeking a...

Spy Kids Movie Review

Spy Kids Movie Review

There are few respectable filmmakers in the world that would take on the difficult challenge...

Get Carter (2000) Movie Review

Get Carter (2000) Movie Review

Forget Get Carter. Instead... get me a cup of coffee.What the hell has happened...

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