Yesterday, movie theaters everywhere were greeted with the ultimate sight in rockin' sexiness -- Rainn Wilson. Yes folks, The Rocker opened yesterday, and now you can see Robert "Fish" Fishman get kicked out of hard-core band Vesuvius, lose all hope, and then find a new future with his nephew's high school rock band twenty years later.
But before the days of rockers, or fastidiousness on The Office, or even pent-up sexual attraction on Six Feet Under, Rainn Wilson was a space man. Above you can see him as Lahnk, in a deleted scene from Galaxy Quest. As a member of the reactor staff, he has a question for the fish-out-of-water Fred (Tony Shalhoub), and wants a little advisement. Oh yeah, and the guy who introduces him -- Enrico Colantoni.
Whoever would've thought that the Spock-esque dude would hop onto Almost Famous, star in a hit television show, and then get a romance with Kelly Bundy?!
For those who've always wondered what movie bloggers talk about late on a Sunday night, look no further as last night my buddy Peter over at Slashfilm emailed me a tip on a film featuring Scarlett Johansson at 13. No, we're not pervs, Peter had come across the awful kids flick on TV and thought it would make a fine Stars in Rewind post. I had never heard of My Brother the Pig, and so upon checking out the clip I was (pleasantly?) surprised to not only see Scarlett doing her 13-year-old thing, but also early Eva Mendez before she changed her last name to Mendes. Better yet, she's playing Johansson's nanny Matilda with a thick Spanish accent. Thankfully Mendes eventually grew up and became hot, removing her from a Hollywood life full of playing the nanny for rich white folk.
My Brother the Pig sort of reminds me of Adventures in Babysitting, except one sibling was accidentally turned into a pig and there's no male teenager to crush on Johansson or her almost-but-not-quite-hot-yet nanny Eva Mendes (ie: This isn't the Johansson threesome you want to see). Also making an appearance as the clueless dad? Yup, Judge Reinhold! You know it's bad when the six different pigs used in the film are credited on the movie's IMDb page. Damn, I can probably do another 500-1000 words on this sick flick, but I'd rather stop here and let you enjoy the clip above.
These days, Robert Downey Jr. has got the world at his fingertips with blockbuster movies and memorable, irresistible race-changing roles. But talk of his career is always tied into his long, rocky past with the movie business. However, things weren't always that way. Before the widely forgotten Baby It's You, or even the likes of the jerky Ian in Weird Science, at the ripe ol' age of 5 he showed up in his dad's film Pound, as "Puppy."
The 1970 film focused on a pound where 18 dogs were hoping to be adopted -- the twist being that they were all played by humans. Robert is, of course, one of the uber-cute, young pups that wanna-be dog owners drool over, and yes, he's saying what you think he's saying. Robert was super-classy and snarky even back then.
We finally get to see his Kirk Lazarus this week, but that's not all Downey has planned for us this year. After the light fare he's been busy with, we'll get to see him star opposite Jamie Foxx in The Soloist this November.
Sure, I've already shared Seth Rogen's audition for Freaks and Geeks, but since the comedic wonder that is The Pineapple Express is finally here, it's a pretty good time to share old-school Saul and Dale before they reunited, hit the chronic, and got themselves in trouble with dangerous drug dealers. A good ten years ago, they were living in 1980. In the above clip, James Franco's Daniel spends a lot of time going punk, and then Nick (Jason Segel) and Ken (Rogen) make fun of him for his new look, full of distressed clothing and eggy hair.
Most of the kid's from Judd Apatow's old show have come a long way, many of them reuniting over and over in the Apatow universe. But I have to say -- it's high time Sarah Hagan gets a piece of the action. It's just wrong that her last movie was Orange County. Even a little cameo. Just a tiny one to start ... Whaddya say, Judd?
At the age of 83, Tony Curtis is getting some film festival love. Jam! reports that the legendary actor will receive a lifetime achievement tribute at the Montreal Film Festival, which runs from August 21 to September 1. In honor of that, I thought it would be nice to go back some years and see old-school Tony. Since we're in the throes of summer, Don't Make Waves seemed most appropriate. It's a tale of possessions up in flames and saucy forays with sexy swimmers.
Don't Make Waves was the first Sharon Tate film to hit theaters, and in the scene above, she meets Mr. Curtis. Tony wakes up to a beach wonderland of surfers, gymnastics, and more, and he foolishly decides to take a swim amongst the surfers. While out there, he gets knocked out by a surfboard, and gets dragged to shore by the epic Tate and given mouth to mouth.
There's no poll this time around, but here's a bit of trivia. While the film didn't do so well, it was the inspiration for Malibu Barbie, based on Tate's character in the film, Malibu.
What with the firestorm over John McCain's ad calling Barack Obama a hollow celebrity akin to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, you'd think someone would have pointed out that McCain actually has Obama beat in the "number of Hollywood movies appeared in" category. Here's a video -- unearthed by Movie Moron via SlashFilm -- of John McCain's amusing cameo in Wedding Crashers, shaking hands with Christopher Walken's remarkably well-connected Secretary Cleary at his daughter's wedding. And yes, that's James Carville next to him, but Carville shows up in everything.
Just a bit of harmless fun for McCain or despicable participation in a BOOB RAUNCH FEST? You be the judge.
Also: Number of cameos on 24: John McCain: 1; Barack Obama: 0. You can check that video out over here. What's that old saw about glass houses?
Last year, Christopher Campbell gave us a Michael Cera "rewind" from Steal This Movie. I hate to be repetitive, but there's another clip I just have to share. Did you know that George Michael once popped up in a Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen television movie called Switching Goals?
He plays Taylor, a jerky tyke who is mean to Ashley and tells her she can't be a good goalie. (This inner-movie knowledge is thanks to the IMDb message board.) In the clip above, the kid gets to be jerky while buying cleats. "Watch it! I have a very delicate bone structure!"
See? Cera can be more than just sweet, passive little boys. He can be a snarky dude trying to protect his bones as well!
Last Rewind Answer: While most of you guessed that Tom Cruise was the man who wasn't considered for the part of Jim Morrison in The Doors, it was actually James Spader.
With Christian Bale currently in theaters kicking ass right, left and sideways as Batman, we thought it'd be fun to take a look back at the Dark Knight when he was just a wee boy. In the clip above, watch as Bale sings and dances up a storm in the film Newsies as Jack "Cowboy" Kelly. Remember that one? It came out in 1992 (though it was set in 1899) and it followed Kelly as he organizes a newsboys' strike due to the raising of the distribution price per paper by the publisher, Joseph Pulitzer. These kids were pissed, poor and ready to put on their dancing shoes -- and who could blame them. In all seriousness, though, this was a fun little flick ... and the music wasn't even half bad.
What do you think? Should Bale take this Batman act to Broadway?
In the last twenty-four hours alone, countless news articles have compared the late Heath Ledger to James Dean. Of course it helps that the two actors -- whose careers lie fifty years apart -- bear physical resemblances to each other. The real reason for the frequency of the comparison, however, revolves around the possibility that Ledger, like Dean, might end up with a posthumous Oscar nomination.
Other than Dean, whose death in a 1955 car accident was preceded by two nominations back-to-back, six actors have landed the distinction -- but only one, Peter Finch, actually won (for Network in 1976). However, Ledger is now perceived an actor who possessed a potential he never quite realized, while Dean was already an icon by the time of his death (and he still didn't win the prize). If Ledger gets nominated for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight, the award will also acknowledge the great career that never was. Dean surely would have followed Giant with other wonderful performances, but his brief filmography also allowed the actor to reach a level of prestige that Ledger would have needed a few more movies to attain. So does this comparison really hold up?
The media certainly seems to think so. "Like Dean, he could endure as a mythic figure of talent silenced before his time," writes the AP. "People are aflutter over seeing the final performance of a new James Dean," reports The Huffington Post. " One quality that Ledger and Dean did share is rapid growth," notes the Baltimore Sun.
***NSFW WARNING: The F-bomb gets thrown around a bunch in this clip of "The End."***
There's an interesting rumor going around that Val Kilmer is teaming up with 50 Cent for a little music. According to Ace Showbiz, the actor stated in a recent interview that 50 Cent liked one of the songs he had written and said "I want to help." How much the pair (who recently worked on Microwave Park together) will collaborate on the tune remains to be seen, but it did get me thinking of old-school Kilmer.
Seventeen years ago, he pretty much morphed into Jim Morrison for Oliver Stone's take on The Doors. Above is a clip of Jim-Val singing "The End" and shocking everyone with his unabashed language. Aside from it being a great song, it's a good example of just how spot-on Kilmer was.
Last Rewind Answer: This time around, the majority got it right -- Jason Segel was the guy.
I sure hope that by now, you've not only seen Seth Rogen in comedies like Superbad, Knocked Up, and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but also his television work on Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. But ... have you seen him before he got his first role as Ken Miller?
Above you can check him out during his Freaks and Geeks audition, where he talks about his career options, and just how he would run a grow house where "the pot would make me happy." It's pretty much the Rogen we know and love today, just a tad younger.
But there's also another oldie, where he popped up on Dawson's Creek as a loser that Busy Philipps' Audrey sleeps with (the scenes also feature pre-Cruise mom Katie and Kate Hudson's brother). You can check that out after the jump. Last Rewind Answer: Sorry folks! A whopping 63% of you said that the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad are also the names of the enemies of G.I. Joe. They are the names of enemies of Captain America.
Even the weirder artists of the twentieth century have been attracted to the allure of Hollywood filmmaking, and Salvador Dali was no exception. In the fall of 1941, the surrealist painter hosted a masquerade party at Pebble Beach during one of his regular visits to the town. Called "Surrealism Night in An Enchanted Forest," the fundraising event, intended to assist European refugee artists, brought out a number of stars, including Bob Hope and Ginger Rogers. It was here, the story goes, that Dali became attached to a major studio production called Moontide. The great German emigre Fritz Lang was hired to direct the movie, and asked Dali to create a three-minute nightmare sequence for the film. Unfortunately, after the incident at Pearl Harbor later that year, Twentieth Century Fox deemed the project too bleak. Lang was replaced, and Dali's nightmare sequence went with him.
Although inspired by the movies, Dali didn't always have the easiest time making them. He would get another chance to inject his hallucinatory vision into American cinema with the hypnosis scene in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound, but it's his unrealized projects that truly indicate the scope of the painter's ambition. So many ideas, such little time. Dali: Painting and Film, a breathtakingly unique exhibit currently on display at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, surveys Dali's completed cinematic works in addition to tidbits from the ones that never came to fruition. Marvelously structured to show how his paintings were intentionally cinematic, the exhibit contains all the obvious highlights from Dali's movie career alongside lesser-known productions. The importance in film history of his collaborations with Luis Bunuel remain uncontested; two large screens in separate rooms showing Un Chien Andalou(where the opening eye splicing retains its original gross-out impact) and L'Age D'Orattest to that. Fewer visitors, however, might know about Dali's collaboration with the Marx Brothers on a deliriously strange movie that sounded too good to be true.
Tonight, the screens will be full of James McAvoy and his Wanted co-stars bending bullet paths and pulling off funky tricks usually relegated to superheroes. The storyline sounds a lot like The Matrix, but luckily that also means keeping one of the previous flick's best features: a tough-arse female mentor. Tonight, Angelina Jolie will put aside her drama and revel in toughness and assassin death, but she's not the only one to do so.
Before Jolie took on the role of Fox, Uma Thurman rocked as The Bride. Above is my favorite scene from the first volume of Kill Bill -- the insidious whistling hospital scene. Considering all the NSFW elements of the two films, I figured this whistling teaser would be best. (But if you want more violence, watch them fight here.) It's Daryl Hannah at her finest, and Uma Thurman getting a nice bout of shut-eye.
Of course, there are a million different films that somehow tie into Wanted. If you're looking for more mainstream, successful action, you might want to check out Christopher Campbell's list of top critically acclaimed action flicks over at Spout.
The Last Rewind Answer: Believe it or not, while consensus has picked Marlon Brando as the man who wasn't considered for Fear and Loathing, it was actually Dustin Hoffman.
After watching the clip from Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson that Erik posted, I couldn't help but think of the fictionalized Hunter S. Thompson on the big screen. The first thing that comes to mind, of course, is Johnny Depp's unforgettable performance in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. With Depp teamed with Benicio del Toro, it was darkly comedic gonzo heaven, like the clip above. I could watch the two of them get high and hallucinate all day.
But, we've got to remember that it's not the only Gonzo/Duke pairing out there. Before Johnny and Benicio, there was Peter Boyle and Bill Murray in Where the Buffalo Roam. It's a touch goofier, but it's cool to see Murray mimic someone else (and do a decent job at it), and it's always great to see Peter Boyle on the big screen. You can check out a clip from that flick after the jump.
Recently, I mentioned my neverending plan to see The Goddess of 1967. There are others on the list as well, like Stalag 17, a laserdisc which still sits at the foot of my bed, waiting to be watched. But, luckily, I can be happy with my cinematic to-do list without much guilt. Maybe there's a shocked face here or there from a friend, but that's it.
The same cannot be said for Diablo Cody, who just blogged about one of her to-watch movies, and how she got one of the most embarrassing, yet truly cool reasons to stop putting it off. She's never seen An American Werewolf in London, and Edgar Wright gave her a copy for her birthday with this written on the front: "Diablo, please watch my movie. John Landis." It was written by the man himself, and not Edgar pretending. That's the ultimate motivation.
So, in honor of embarrassment in the face of classic filmmakers, here's a Stars in Rewind for Landis' classic.
In the last twenty-four hours alone, countless news articles have compared the late 
