We’ve been excited about Hesher ever since we first heard about the film, which debuted at Sundance last year. So we’re definitely planning to see it when it makes its theatrical debut this weekend. But despite our anticipation, we do have one worry: that we’ll never be able to look at Joseph Gordon-Levitt the same way again. You see, he plays Hesher‘s title character, a greasy, ratty-haired, tattooed metal guy with bad teeth and penchant for farting. Thankfully, Gordon-Levitt is hardly the first actor to sacrifice beauty or likability for a good role. After the jump, we recall ten more roles that killed our crushes, on everyone from Charlize Theron to Christian Bale.

Read More »

On a recent episode of his Savage Love podcast, Dan Savage indulged in what has become a Yuletide tradition: railing against Christmas-themed erotica. His implicit objection to Santa-hatted self-pics and the like is simple enough to understand; he thinks Christmas just isn’t sexy. He’s not alone, and most of these Sex Scrooges are right — there’s nothing inherently libidinous about a holiday centered on tree ornamentation, elf labor, and Jesus. But a handful of films have dared to forge an alliance between Christmastime and Sexytime.

Read More »

1. Arcade Fire and Spike Jonze worked on a short film accompaniment to The Suburbs: “It’s like a science-fiction B-movie companion piece for the record.” [via Pitchfork]
2. There’s a 3D Justin Bieber biopic in the works that will be directed by Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim, the same man who helmed An Inconvenient Truth. Oh, and it gets better: Bieber will be playing himself. And it comes out on Valentine’s Day, 2011. [via Deadline]
3. Paul McCartney wants Ryan Murphy to use the Beatles’ songs on Glee — so badly, that he sent him a mixtape with some suggested tracks. [via Vulture]
4. Jason Reitman and Charlize Theron are in talks to direct and star in Young Adult, a Diablo Cody film about “a thirtysomething, divorced, young-adult fiction writer in Minneapolis who returns to her hometown to chase the ex-boyfriend, who’s now married with a kid, that got away.” [via THR]
5. Would you spend $200,000 on this 7-year-old’s paintings? [via Gawker]

Bonus link: Mental Floss’ 50 Amazing Facts for Our 50th Issue

Gray, empty, and full of collapsed architecture, the godforsaken landscape of The Road — which opens in theaters today — is true to author Cormac McCarthy’s lean, illustrious source.

Less a trained road warrior than a weary yet determined father, Viggo Mortensen carries this post-apocalyptic film and his family — namely The Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) — on his raggedy back. The plot is as spare as McCarthy’s prose: father and son must rely on each other as they trek across this eerie, desolate world to the sea.

Read More »

1. Speech Debelle has won this year’s Mercury Prize for her album Speech Therapy. [via NME] (Read our interview with her here.)
2. Why losing Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, and juicy election fodder might be too much for Saturday Night Live to handle. [via WaPo]
3. A new (possibly NSFW) episode of Between Two Ferns features Zach Galifianakis interviewing Charlize Theron. [via FunnyorDie]
4. A preview of what you’ll read in Malcolm Gladwell’s new book: What the Dog Saw. [via Kottke]
5. Warner Bros. has reached an undisclosed settlement over Lord of the Rings licensing agreements with J.R.R. Tolkien’s 80-year-old kids. [via LAT]

Bonus link: Next Tarantino Movie An Homage To Beloved Tarantino Movies Of Director’s Youth [via The Onion]

Recently, with heated talks about an Arrested Development movie in the works rekindling my interest, I’ve been watching a fair amount of the short-lived cult comedy. Sometime around my fourth viewing of season three I started to have an epiphany. In the show, Michael Bluth’s love interest Rita (played hilariously by Charlize Theron), whom the show’s characters had previously thought to just be whimsically eccentric, is revealed to be mentally handicapped. Read More »

Madonna no longer “hung up” on Richie: Madonna finally settled her divorce with Guy Ritchie yesterday, paying him a dainty little sum of $76 million, which included their country home in England and a pub in London. Was their entire marriage just a way for him to get funding for Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels:2? [AP]

SAG saga continues, famous people jump on board: A slew of well-known actors got together Monday after signing a petition against strike authorization in the ever-evolving SAG situation. George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Kevin Spacey and Charlize Theron joined 150 actors who don’t buy the top brass’s claims that the authorization would get the guild leverage for wanted contracts. Initiate Golden Globes Deathwatch. [THR]

School, interrupted: Remember that movie where Angelina Jolie and Winona Ryder play crazies? In New York, Girl, Interrupted, the book, was being used as a text for a high school psych class, but staff members reportedly pulled out pages mentioning oral sex. Censorship’s cute and all, but we think high-schoolers can handle some head. [Newsday]

Househusbands are the new black: Forget The Real Housewives of [Insert City Here]. FOX has ordered nine hours of a new series that will follow the lives of a group of stay-at-home dads of “successful L.A. women,” including Vanessa from The Cosby Show. Kudos for trying something new, but as far as we’re concerned, the network will never be able to trump this reality TV moment. [THR]

Zach Galifianakis/Jon Hamm sandwich: In this hard-hitting interview with our favorite comedian, the Mad Men actor confirms that he likes Web sites, his middle name isn’t “honeybaked” and his TV show isn’t about people who are in their ’60s. Watch out Barbara Walters. [Goldenfiddle]

WILL SMITH and STEVEN SPIELBERG are in talks to team up for a remake of a Korean drama about a man imprisoned for 15 years and then released with a cell phone, some money and no explanation. It will be a nice change of pace for Spielberg who is next slated to work on a TINTIN movie with the incredibly shrinking PETER JACKSON. [Variety]

JACK BLACK has been cast as the lead in a “contemporary re-imagining” of GULLIVER’S TRAVELS where he’ll play a travel writer who gets lost in the Bermuda Triangle. Is this just a badly-veiled excuse to pair Black with a cast of little people? [Cinematical]

TOM CRUISE and CHARLIZE THERON are in talks to join forces in an upcoming thriller called THE TOURIST, based on the 2005 French flick by ANTHONY ZIMMER. The exciting part is that Theron will be playing a tough Interpol agent; Cruise her bumbling tourist sexual pawn. He better hope that she doesn’t go all Wuornos on his ass. [Variety]

PETER and BOBBY FARRELLY have written a screenplay for a THREE STOOGES movie that MGM is looking to greenlight which provides the back story for Moe, Larry and Curly. The brothers will direct the film, but there’s no word yet on casting (we’re choosing to ignore that strange bit about RUSSELL CROWE and MEL GIBSON as possibilities). [THR]