By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Josh Horowitz
Leonardo DiCaprio in “Inception”
Photo: Warner Bros.
There’s a moment early in “Inception” (beware mild spoilers) when Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page meet within a Parisian dream world of Page’s creation. Leo is a former architect turned professional dream thief, and he’s trying to convince Page to ditch her architectural studies and become part of his crew.
Jul 10
17
‘Inception’: The Reviews Are In!
By Eric Ditzian
Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “Inception”
Photo: Warner Bros.
It happened last winter with “Avatar” and it’s happening again with “Inception”: a hugely hyped, big-budget thrill-ride hits theaters, pretty much everyone loves it, yet there remain a few critics on the sideline defiantly shouting, “But it’s really not that good, people!”
By Mawuse Ziegbe
John Edwards
Photo: Jonathan Torgovnik/ Getty Images
The saga of disgraced North Carolina politician John Edwards is on its way to the big screen. According to The Hollywood Reporter, screenwriter and “The West Wing” creator Aaron Sorkin has acquired the rights to the tell-all “The Politician: An Insider’s Account of John Edwards’s Pursuit of the Presidency and the Scandal That Brought Him Down.” The tome was penned by Edwards aide Andrew Young, who divulged damaging details about the pol’s extramarital affair.
Jul 10
17
‘Inception’: Dream Warriors
By Kurt Loder
Joseph Gordon-Levitt in “Inception”
Photo: Warner Bros.
Are they handing out joints at the box office for “Inception”? That would make the movie considerably more fun. Christopher Nolan’s latest is a terrific-looking picture that bounds around the globe from Paris to Tangiers to Tokyo (among places that actually exist) in the wake of a freelance dream thief named Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio). Cobb’s specialty is infiltrating the dreams of corporate big shots and extracting their most valuable secrets. His latest assignment, however, is a little different — a Japanese industrialist named Saito (Ken Watanabe) has hired him to implant an idea in someone’s head that will allow Saito to take over a rival titan’s business empire. Cobb’s reward for achieving this goal: an end to his exile from the United States, where he’s currently a wanted man, and a yearned-for reunion with his two children.
By Eric Ditzian
Leonardo Dicaprio in “Inception”
Photo: Warner Bros.
“Inception” is defined as a beginning — the act of commencement — but in Hollywood these days, “Inception” might just be shorthand for what happens when you make two immensely profitable movies and a studio backs up a truckload of cash onto your front lawn and says, “Thanks, man! Now go make the movie you’ve always dreamed of making.”
By Mawuse Ziegbe
Taylor Lautner
Photo: Jim Spellman/ WireImage
Taylor Lautner already plays one of the most recognizable onscreen characters as werewolf Jacob Black in the teen hysteria-inducing “Twilight” flicks. But another star thinks Lautner should put his ripped physique to good use in another role. “Wolverine” star Hugh Jackman says Lautner could convincingly don a pair of claws as a teen Wolverine in next year’s “X-Men: First Class.”
By Eric Ditzian
Ryan Reynolds on the July 16 cover of <i>Entertainment Weekly</i>
Photo: Entertainment Weekly
For Ryan Reynolds, the most professionally satisfying moment of 2009 was the first time he saw the Green Lantern costume he’d be rocking for the upcoming big-screen adaptation of the classic DC Comics superhero.
By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Josh Horowitz
Leonardo DiCaprio in “Inception”
Photo: Warner Bros.
The demented memory flipbook that is “Memento,” the noir-ish freakery of Gotham City in “The Dark Knight,” the intricately woven, epically scaled “Inception” — all this can be traced back to a formative experience director Christopher Nolan had at the cinema in 1977.
By Kara Warner
Leonardo DiCaprio at the “Inception” premiere on Tuesday
Photo: Robyn Beck/ Getty Images
HOLLYWOOD — The anticipation for “Inception” hit a fever pitch Tuesday night, when the film’s stars descended upon the U.S. premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Tourists and fans alike crammed together, trying to catch a glimpse of the star-studded black-and-red carpet, backed by a continuous loop of Hans Zimmer’s intense, ominous score. The stars of Christopher Nolan’s latest mind-bender were less-than-ominous, however, when they shared the highlights of their experience working on the movie, which opens on Friday.
By Kara Warner
Joaquin Phoenix
Photo: Jacob Andrzejczak/ Getty Images
While fans of Joaquin Phoenix remain divided about whether to take the actor’s rap music aspirations seriously — some saying his bizarre public appearances qualify him for “kooky actor” status, à la Gary Busey — he may get the last laugh. The documentary “I’m Still Here: The Lost Year of Joaquin Phoenix,” has been picked up for distribution and release by Magnolia films, according to a recent report.
By Kara Warner
Mark Ruffalo
Photo: Mike Coppola/ FilmMagic
Hot on the heels of Marvel’s big announcement Monday that Edward Norton would not be reprising the role of Bruce Banner in “The Avengers” comes a report that studio head Kevin Feige and company have tapped Mark Ruffalo to take over the role.
By Eric Ditzian, with reporting by Kara Warner
Cillian Murphy
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
“Inception” is one of those movies that’s impossible to talk about with people who haven’t seen it and desperately want to avoid spoilers. To discuss any given scene in this thriller about the world of dreams — no matter where it takes place in the story, no matter how minor it might seem on the surface — you have to reveal whole swaths of plot secrets.
By Eric Ditzian
Tom Cruise
Photo: George Pimentel/WireImage
Paramount and Tom Cruise chose to accept another “Mission: Impossible” in February, and despite a slew of questions surrounding the project, both the studio and its leading man remain committed to one another.
By Kara Warner
Leonardo DiCaprio attends the Los Angeles premiere of “Inception” on Tuesday
Photo: Steve Granitz/Getty Images
HOLLYWOOD — “Inception” is shaping up to be the moviegoing event of the summer. The sci-fi thriller written and directed by “The Dark Knight” maestro Christopher Nolan has dazzled critics and whipped expectant audiences into a frenzy before its release on Friday. But one aspect that has sparked heated debate is the particularly dubious last scene. On the red carpet of the film’s L.A. premiere, MTV News asked the film’s stars to weigh in on that compelling final moment — as well as whether an “Inception 2″ is a possibility.
Nicolas Cage in an action-packed fantasy epic that’s not just for kids.
Nicolas Cage in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”
Photo: Disney
Kid flicks have ruled this summer, with movies like “Toy Story 3,” “The Karate Kid” and “Despicable Me” racking up box-office grosses far beyond industry predictions. Now comes “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” which looks likely to repeat that money-minting feat. Like all great kid flicks, though, it’s too good — too fast and too funny — to be confined within the “family film” ghetto.
It’s a Disney picture, of course, derived from a segment of the studio’s 1940 animated classic, “Fantasia,” in which apprentice sorcerer Mickey Mouse did battle with a platoon of out-of-control buckets and mops. For this live-action version of the tale, that eight-minute episode has been much-enlarged (although thanks to some of the year’s tightest editing, the movie still runs well under two hours). Now the story begins in 740 A.D., with the legendary sorcerer Merlin bequeathing his magical secrets to three acolytes, Balthazar (Nicolas Cage, back in top comic form), Horvath (Alfred Molina) and Veronica (Monica Belluci). But Horvath is secretly in league with the evil Morgana Le Fay (Alice Krige), who wants to use Merlin’s secrets to (what else?) “enslave mankind.” Morgana knows that Balthazar loves Veronica, so she takes possession of Veronica’s body. Balthazar is torn, but Veronica implores him to imprison her (and her inner Morgana) within a Grimhold — a nesting-doll contraption designed as a repository for all sorts of nasty Morganians.
The director, Disney vet Jon Turteltaub, sketches in this prologue with gratifying brevity. The story then leaps ahead some 1,200 years. The immortal Balthazar is now the proprietor of a curio shop in downtown Manhattan. When a boy named Dave (Jake Cherry) blunders into his store one day, Balthazar — who still has the Grimhold, and has been searching for a kid to turn into a supremely great sorcerer, the “Prime Merlinean” — realizes that Dave is the one. But then Horvath materializes in the cluttered store, a fantastical wizard fight ensues, and the Grimhold is lost (well, misplaced). Jumping ahead another 10 years, we find that the grown-up Dave (Jay Baruchel) is now an NYU physics student well on his way to becoming a career nerd. Balthazar reappears to instruct him in the magical arts he’ll need to help recover the Grimhold. But Horvath is back on the scene, too, and soon recruits his own apprentice, a celebrity illusionist named Drake (Toby Kebbell, delightfully daft), whose rock-star affectations — snakeskin pants, bleached rooster hairdo — are decidedly post-Merlinean. (“Are you in Depeche Mode?” someone asks.) Now the furious hunt for the Grimhold gets underway in earnest.
The movie’s action, which rarely lets up, is a stunning blend of practical stunt-work and highly-imaginative CGI. (And the digital effects are so precisely applied that very little of what we see here looks like a cartoon.) You’re still marveling at a huge metal eagle that has sprung to life on the side of the Chrysler Building (Balthazar climbs aboard and flies away on it), when a frantic car chase (this is a Jerry Bruckheimer movie) gets underway, tearing through traffic-clogged Times Square, with Balthazar’s Rolls-Royce transforming into an SUV and Horvath’s Mercedes morphing into a Ferrari, a taxi and a scary garbage truck. (In one of the movie’s cleverest inventions, the two antagonists careen into a mirror-world universe in which all the famous Times Square signage is reverse-lettered). Then there’s a spectacular sequence set amid the confetti-blizzard of a clamorous Chinatown street parade, in which Balthazar and Dave are menaced by an exotic Morganian called Sun Lok (Gregory Woo) and a papier-mâché dragon that suddenly springs to rampaging life.
I’m leaving aside the raging wolf-pack attack, the angry iron bull and all the furious sword-and-sorcery (and fiery plasma-ball) combat. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” is really a high-caliber action movie, and it’s not just for kids. Although there is a message, of sorts, for all the little nippers who’ll be pulling their parents along to see it. After listening skeptically to one of Dave’s evasive excuses for screwing up his magical training, Balthazar says, “You’re a bad liar, Dave. I like that.”
Check out everything we’ve got on “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.”
For breaking news, celebrity columns, humor and more — updated around the clock — visit MTVMoviesBlog.com.
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