Imagine, on this Earth Day, that solving the problem of global warming and other environmental concerns was as easy as defeating one main villain. Unfortunately, there are and have been millions of bad guys in the story of our planet’s health, so there’s no easy solution involving the killing or imprisonment of a single threat, as is often the case in the movies. Some films, such as WALL-E, do point the finger at the human race in general, but for purposes of narrative closure, environmentalist plots typically close the door on their specific issues by punishing an individual character responsible for that issue.
In our list of the worst of these environmental offenders, we decided to stick to films of the last twenty years, because they were made in more environmentally conscious times yet they still represent threats as being caused primarily by singular villains. We also excluded all non-fiction films, both documentaries and dramas based on true stories, because no real-life characters are/were as terrible as these ten baddies:
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When I first had the idea to assemble a dream cast for a movie about Somali pirates, I envisioned a typical actioner with a dash of tense international politics. The pirates would be played by unknown actors of African descent, with the exception of “the good one,” who would be played by either Djimon Hounsou or Chiwetel Ejiofor. He would realize his folly, then become an integral part of the hero’s harrowing siege of a captured vessel. The hero, of course, would be a white, male, American naval officer, rough around the edges, not afraid to cut the crap and do the right thing. As it turns out, the truth of what’s going on in the Gulf of Aden is much more fascinating.
Enter Michele Ballarin: Virginia socialite, investment banker, weapons dealer. When she’s not breeding horses or fending off allegations of fraud in Austria, she’s running Select Armor, Inc. The company is not your typical private security firm competing for lucrative anti-terror contracts. It’s a small, nimble company, run by a woman, with small town roots, and plenty of murky dealings in places like Somalia.
What does Ballarin have to due with the pirates? More importantly, who should play her in a movie? More after the jump.
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At the WOW Report, producer Fenton Bailey names a 42-second TMZ clip of Julia Roberts confronting a cameraman as his favorite movie of 2007. The blurb:
“Julia Attacks!” [The video's actual title is "America's Pissed-off Sweetheart"--Ed.] is a TMZ video in which Julia Roberts chases down and gives a telling off to a paparazzi. Julia — absent from our screens for too long — is completely convincing in this role as an angry mom. The car chase is excellent and the cinematography visceral and immersive. Some moviegoers might be disappointed that this movie is less than a minute long because Julia has her costar turn off the camera before she delivers her speech about children and paparazzi, but most movies are too long anyway.
I love that last last line. Movies are too long, too bloated, too full of filler. If the base motivator to see a Hollywood film is to see a star being a star, then a clip like this reduces it to what’s it’s all about. Julia Roberts asserts her dominance on the celebrity food chain (and thus, in the universe) by convincing a paparazzo to stop plying his trade by turning off his video camera. That she manages to pull it off in twenty seconds of car chase and ten seconds of yelling is all the more impressive.
Over the first few weeks of their relationship, she’ll be forced to divulge more and more details. He’ll freak out; he’ll ask her to duplicate the more raunchy sex acts with him, thinking it will remove the bad taste from his mouth if he could mark his territory, so to speak (Edward, if anything, was a narcissist). It won’t; it will only make him feel worse — knowing she’s done those things with other men — and she’ll feel used and violated in the process…She’ll cry. He’ll walk out. And the next day, the deed to the penthouse they’re staying in will arrive, signed over to Vivian. Underneath Edward’s transfer of ownership signature, it will read, “Services rendered.” And that, folks, will be the end of that.
Pajiba’s Dustin Rowles “debunks” the happy endings of ten romantic comedies with predictions as to what really happened to the lovers at the center of films like Pretty Woman, Sleepless in Seattle and The Princess Bride after the credits rolled. It’s a long read, but consistently LOLworthy.
Nikki Finke has issued a response to Jeff Robinov’s response to her claim that three producers told her that Robinov is no longer putting films starring women into production. After meticulously detailing a couple of days worth of phone tag between her and Robinov, Finke writes:
Sources inside Warner’s tell me that, 1) Robinov doesn’t believe there’s an actress who can carry a movie worldwide since Julia Roberts, 2) Robinov has now gone so far as admitting to his studio colleagues that the decree I reported was made when he was “in the room”, 2) Robinov is acknowledging that the studio is reassessing the strategy of making action pictures starring women, 3) Robinov was inundated with calls on Monday and Tuesday from media and Hollywood types asking him about my posting, 4) Robinov has three pics currently in production and six in pre-production and not one stars a women as the main lead of the film, and 5) he’s nixed Wonder Woman as a stand-alone film, downgrading her to just one of four superhero characters in the proposed Justice League. Again, I stand by my story.
So, in other words, more of the same. Much more interesting, I think, is an excerpt from Lisa Chase’s interview with Finke in the latest issue of Elle, in which Finke explains why women in Hollywood “can’t get ahead.” More after the jump.
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