I know what brings traffic to movie blogs: Megan Fox wearing as little as possible. Case in point: Movie Gab debuted some paparazzi pics of Fox on the set of Jonah Hex a few weeks ago, but she was wearing a robe, and not surprisingly I heard nothing of the photos. Today the same site presents more images, this time of Fox in an Old West Prostitute costume (i.e. corset, stockings, boots, gloves) and the internerds explode with posts. Sure, it’s also yet another slow news day in terms of stuff that excites the collective film bloggery, but I’m sure these shots would still have shown up on every movie and gossip site on a much busier day. Why? Because Megan Fox pays our bills, of course.

Not that I understand the attraction. I don’t mean to insult Fox, who is indeed an attractive woman. But I don’t get what she’s got that at least a thousand other hot young actresses don’t have. Aside from the fact that she’s sold on sex, be it through cleavage-exposing publicity photos or that recent Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen footage of her stripping, what is it about her that makes her the Clara Bow of the late 2000’s? (Confession: Bow never did “It” for me either, so maybe I’m just out of touch). Anyway, I am noticing that these new Fox photos are garnering some criticism for how skinny her corset makes her look, and I do appreciate that not everyone is positively spellbound by her.

Anyway, check out what other bloggers are saying about the images after the jump. Meanwhile, I’ll be checking out that sexier wet, tattooed back shot of Sandra Bullock that Mark Graham has posted over at Vulture.

…Read more

This has been a good week for remakes (or a bad week, depending on how you feel about them), but while announced redos of our beloved mystery comedies, sci-fi actioners and neverending fantasy flicks are shocking enough, there’s not a blogger in the world who saw a new “contemporized” version of Damn Yankees coming. Let alone one starring Jim Carrey and Jake Gyllenhaal as Mr. Applegate (aka Satan) and soul-selling baseballer Joe Hardy, respectively.

Yet Hugh Jackman and the rest of the all-singing-all-dancing stars of Sunday’s Oscars telecast did tell us that the musical is back, so maybe we should be making bets on what classic songfest gets reworked next (I’m putting money on West Side Story). This isn’t even the first musical remake we’ll be seeing in the next few years. New films of My Fair Lady, Carousel, Bye Bye Birdie and Jesus Christ Superstar are apparently already on their way to theaters. Anyhoo, let’s see how the ol’ blogosphere reacted to the Damn Yankees news today:

…Read more

Che director Steven Soderbergh recently told Anne Thompson that his eyebrow-raising 3D musical about Cleopatra is going to be tonally inspired by Gilda, King Vidor’s 1946 noir starring Rita Hayworth. Which is … interesting.

…Read more

• According to Variety, Steven Soderbergh “is plotting a 3-D live-action rock ’n’ roll musical about Cleopatra,” for which he “is courting Catherine Zeta-Jones” for the title role. We’re sure this will never actually happen., because obviously, S.S. is just pulling a fast one on the trades by convincing them that he’s moving on to Cleo immediately after Che. Right? He must have either lost it, or have lost the ability to make a convincing joke… right?
  
• John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt will replace The Soloist as the opening night film at AFI. A better win-win couldn’t have been planned.
• The Academy is parcelling out almost half a million dollars in grants to various film fesitvals, including Sarasota, Seattle, and Ebert Fest.

• Barry Levinson’s meta Hollywood comedy What Just Happened?, which premiered at Sundance to a chorus of shrugs and remains undistributed, had been selected to close the Cannes Film Festival.
• SAG has announced nine interim deals with indie production outfit The Film Department, in an effort to put pressure on the major studios to settle on a new contract in advance of a threatened strike. Variety says the studios are “unlikely” to be scared enough by the prospect of Catherine Zeta-Jones going back to work without them to be moved into immediate action.
• Women in Film, “a non-profit organization dedicated to helping women within the entertainment, communication and media industries,” will honor Salma Hayek, Diane English, Ginnifer Goodwin and Sherry Lansing at their 35th annual awards ceremony in June.
• The title for the long-awaited (apparently; if you’re acquainted with an awaiter, let us know) X-Files movie sequel has finally been released. The X-Files: I Want to Believe opens on July 25.