'Venus in Fur' to Extend Its Run on Broadway

NY (AP) The acclaimed Broadway production of "Venus in Fur" isn't slinking away quite yet.The Manhattan Theatre Club said Monday that Walter Bobbie's play starring Tony Award nominee Nina Arianda and Emmy Award nominee Hugh Dancy will transfer to Broadway's Lyceum Theatre in February and run until June.The show is playing at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre and was scheduled to end its run on Sunday. After the transfer, the show will resume production at the Lyceum from Feb. 7 to June 17.The two-character play explores power dynamics in the audition room and thrilled audiences off-Broadway last year at the Classic Stage Company with Arianda aboard.Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. PHOTO CREDIT Joan Marcus NY (AP) The acclaimed Broadway production of "Venus in Fur" isn't slinking away quite yet.The Manhattan Theatre Club said Monday that Walter Bobbie's play starring Tony Award nominee Nina Arianda and Emmy Award nominee Hugh Dancy will transfer to Broadway's Lyceum Theatre in February and run until June.The show is playing at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre and was scheduled to end its run on Sunday. After the transfer, the show will resume production at the Lyceum from Feb. 7 to June 17.The two-character play explores power dynamics in the audition room and thrilled audiences off-Broadway last year at the Classic Stage Company with Arianda aboard.Copyright 2011 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Battleship will receive a complete-length trailer

Battleship, Universal's large blockbuster expect 2012, has revealed an entire-length trailer.Unlike the very first, which needed the time is right creating the the slightly contrived backstory - Taylor Kitsch is boffing the daughter of his commanding officer Liam Neeson - that certain goes all-by helping cover their the knowledge.In shifting the primary focus, furthermore, it possesses a indication in the boardgame it's based on, most notoriously while using opening shot in the alien ships hiding in formation inside the depths in the ocean.There's a reasonably strong Transformers vibe permeating this trailer, nevertheless the set pieces do look fantastically epic (as well as other).We have a look in the aliens themselves, or otherwise their mecha-suits, and Beyonce will receive a handful of lines of dialogue this time around around around. In addition might be as soon as when Alexander Skarsgård's face goes all wibbly-shaky within the shockwave from the explosion.Have a look by yourself below:Battleship opens on 20 April 2012.

REVIEW: The Material Girl Channels Wallis Simpson, and Her Stuff, in W.E.

Even though it’s something of a slick mess, Madonna’s W.E. is just the kind of movie you’d expect from an artist who once, with a delightful lack of irony, declared herself a material girl. A weirdly sympathetic portrait of Wallis Simpson, the woman for whom a king gave up his throne, W.E. is the story of a life told through stuff: Evening gloves, cocktail shakers, baubles from Cartier, little hats trimmed with netting. It’s as if Madonna went back in time and forgot to talk to actual people, to find out how they lived and what they thought — but she sure did a lot of shopping. And that’s OK, as far as it goes. W.E. is at times comically bad. But it’s also criminally watchable: Even through its many dull patches, places where Madonna apparently felt the need to carefully frame characters in doorways and hallways for no good reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off it. This is Madonna’s second movie as a director (following the 2008 comedy Filth and Wisdom), and it’s obviously her bid to make a classy period picture that people will take seriously. The Weinstein Co., for one, sort of has: Perhaps it’s hoping to repeat the magic formula that worked so well last year with The King’s Speech, a movie set in the same era and dealing with some of the same characters, though the tone and approach of W.E. is very different. W.E. is actually two intertwining stories — or maybe, more accurately, two stories clumsily rubbing against each other in an awkward attempt to set off a spark. The first is the story, set in the late 1990s, of Wally Winthrop, a young NY society wife played by Abbie Cornish. Wally, it turns out, was named after the Duchess of Windsor — her mother and grandmother were obsessed with the stylish American double divorce who stole a king’s heart. That helps explain why Wally, who’s ignored — and worse — by her rich doctor husband (Richard Coyle), keeps stalking her former place of employment, which happens to be Sotheby’s: The auction house is just about to sell off many of the Duchess’s possessions, and since Wally used to work there, she can just go around lifting Wallis’s crystal stemware off tables and removing nighties from their hangers to scrutinize and fondle them. A handsome Russian intellectual-slash-security guard (I kid you not), played by the winsome Guatemalan actor Oscar Isaac, also happens to have a crush on Wally; he’s a good guy to have around when you have a hankering to stroke precious historical objects willy-nilly. Wally has other problems — she desperately wants a child, even as her scoundrel of a husband refuses to sleep with her. And so, interlocked with Wally’s story, we get episodic glimpses into the life of her idol, Wallis (played, in a stroke of brilliant casting, by Andrea Riseborough, who shares Mrs. Simpson’s regal bearing; she has also appeared recently in Rowan Joffe’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s Brighton Rock). It turns out Wallis was often unhappy, too! And that she made sacrifices in life! And that she wasn’t the Nazi sympathizer she was made out to be! When Wally’s husband tries to bring up the Duchess’s hazy Nazi-loving past, Wally comes limping to her defense: “Most of that’s based on rumor,” she retorts. So there. Later, Wally brings more irrefutable evidence to the Wallis Simpson pity party: “The whole world turned against her.” Take that. Madonna, who co-wrote the script with Alek Keshishian (the director of Madonna: Truth or Dare), isn’t wrong about that. But do we much care? Madonna is actually following a decent impulse here: The desire to take an unlikable character and render her in shades beyond black-and-white. But even as viewed through the filmmaker’s glassy, admiring eyes, Wallis isn’t easy to care about. Madonna takes great pains to show how Mrs. Simpson tried to persuade her paramour to stay on the throne; but James D’Arcy, as the abdicator Edward VIII — known to his close friends and family as David — declared he couldn’t live unless he could have the woman he loved by his side. What Madonna does capture is Edward’s romantic naivete. And Wallis does rattle a mean cocktail shaker. I guess it’s easy enough to see how a guy’s head — even a royal head — could get turned by that delightful chrome shak-a-shak sound. But W.E. is too much of a sprawl; the parallels between the two women are stretched uncomfortably, and Cornish, especially, is left with little to do. Madonna doesn’t really have a point of view — she wants to set the record straight on Wallis, but she doesn’t have the ammunition or the skills to do it right. W.E. is filled with stylish, empty touches: After the young (and pregnant) Wallis is kicked in the stomach by her first husband, we see her lying on a sparkling white tile floor as a pool of crimson blood gathers around her nether region. It’s the best-art-directed miscarriage I’ve seen all year. But W.E. does try, at least, to put a few nicks and scratches in the concept of the “great love story.” The movie’s title refers to the term Wallis and Edward used, privately, for themselves as a fused unit — a forerunner of Brangelina and Bennifer, if you will. The idea of that sort of soulmate coupling is either wildly romantic to you, or it’s stifling. Madonna isn’t quite sure which side of that fence she’s on, but at least she’s acknowledging the fence. She’s also keyed in to Wallis Simpson’s practical side: No material girl would scoff at custom-made trinkets from Cartier, and when Edward does super-cute stuff like hide a diamond-encrusted cross in the bottom of her teacup, Wallis accepts with delight. “You certainly know the way to a woman’s heart,” she coos, to which he responds, “I wasn’t aiming that high.” That’s Madonna’s baser instinct at work, and W.E. could use more of it: The movie’s shallowest moments are also its most honest. [Editor’s note: This review appeared earlier, in a slightly different form, in Stephanie Zacharek’s Venice Film Festival coverage.] Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.

Barbara Orbison, Widow Of Roy Orbison, Dies In LA

First Published: December 7, 2011 10:45 AM EST Credit: FilmMagic LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- Caption Barbara Orbison attends the 50th Anniversary Celebration by honoring musician Ringo Starr with a Star On The Hollywood Walk Of Fame in Hollywood on February 8, 2010Barbara Orbison, widow of rock n roll pioneer Roy Orbison, died Tuesday on the 23rd anniversary of her husbands death, a family spokeswoman said. She was 60. Barbara Orbison died from pancreatic cancer at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center surrounded by her sons, said publicist and family spokeswoman Sarah McMullen. Orbison had been hospitalized since May. Since the 1980s, Barbara Orbison devoted her time to managing her husbands estate and keeping his legacy alive. With her son, Roy Kelton Orbison Jr. she co-produced a four-CD box set of her husbands 107 recordings. Roy Orbison: The Soul of Rock and Roll was released in 2008 and contains all of his hits and 12 previously unreleased tracks. The package marked the first all-inclusive body of Roy Orbisons work from his earliest recordings to the Traveling Wilburys debut album, Mystery Girl and his last live performance. Roy Orbison died in 1988 at the age of 52, in the midst of a comeback with The Traveling Wilburys. Actor Patrick Swayzes widow, Lisa Swayze, said her heart out goes out to the Orbison family. Patrick and I always had a warm connection with them both. Now we havelost this wonderful lady, Lisa Swayze said. Patrick Swayze died in September 2009 of pancreatic cancer. In 1998, Barbara Orbison issued Combo Concert on her label Orbison Records, a collection of previously unreleased live recordings from Holland and France made in 1965, according to Roy Orbisons official website. That same year, Barbara Orbison accepted the Recording Academys Lifetime Achievement Award on her husbands behalf, which honored his contribution to the recording industry. In January, 2010, Barbara Orbison accepted a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on her husbands behalf. Barbara Orbisons Nashville, Tenn.-based music publishing company Still Working Music was recently awarded BMIs 2010 Song of the Year for Taylor Swifts You Belong With Me. Roy Orbison paid tribute to his wife on his website. Ive spent my lifetime trying to figure love out. Love ranges from just fascination to something almost spiritual. In the case with my wife, Barbara, it just keeps growing all the time, he wrote. Barbara Orbison will be buried next to her husband at Westwood Village Memorial Park in Los Angeles, McMullen said. A Celebration of Life will be held at an undetermined future date in Nashville, Tenn. Barbara Orbison is survived by her sons Wesley Orbison, 46, Roy Kelton Orbison, Jr., 41 and Alexander Orbison, 36. Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Warners Prepares For An Unholy Night

By buying Seth Grahame-Smith's new bookNot content with blending Jane Austen's style of brooding romance with brain-chomping zomboids or re-envisioning US president Abraham Lincoln as a staunch warrior against the vampire menace, Seth Grahame-Smith is at it again, this time taking the birth of Jesus and, more specifically the Three Kings, in a new direction for Holy Night, which Warners has just snapped up.The book, which is set to hit shelves in April, takes the story of the three wise men and re-imagines them as thieves on the run who end up helping Mary and Jesus to flee Egypt. Along the way, they meet people such as Pontius Pilate and John The Baptist and, because the man can clearly not stay away from the monster stories, battle "magical Biblical creatures." Yeah, we can't forsee anyone having a problem with using Jesus and family in that way. You can already hear the protests in your mind, can't you? Warners threw down $2 million to nab the rights, which includes Grahame-Smith writing the screenplay and producing via the KatzSmith production company he recently formed with David Katzenberg.Smith is also behind the script for next year's Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter (due in August) and Tim Burton's latest Johnny Depp joint, Dark Shadows (that one arrives in May). He's also been busy creating TV shows and buying up the rights to a few books he didn't write, including young adult novel The Scorpio Races.