Hollywood Round-up, 7/7

From "Tron: Legacy."

By Jason Apuzzo. • The LA Times’ Patrick Goldstein talks today about Inception hysteria among critics, and the potential of a backlash.  I think Patrick basically nails this one on the head, but the real issue is not so much Inception as Christopher Nolan.  Not everyone is sold on him yet as a ‘visionary.’  He may simply be overindulged at this point in his career, riding the long wave of the Batman franchise.  There are too many iffy projects in Nolan’s recent past (The Prestige, Insomnia, Following) to uncritically accept the hype about one of his offerings right now.  And nothing I’ve seen in the Inception reviews suggests that Nolan has suddenly developed a sense of humor in his writing, to counterbalance his compulsive and somewhat amateurish philosophizing.  We’ll see.

Bar Refaeli.

• Matt Damon is apparently gearing up to play Liberace’s love interest in a new Liberace biopic. Provide your own punchline for this. I believe this is what was once quaintly referred to as a ‘career risk.’ For this role Damon may need to stretch and add a second facial expression to his repertoire.

• Tron will be featured in the forthcoming edition of Empire magazine. I’m beginning to develop a soupçon of enthusiasm for this project. Perhaps. Am I committing myself too much?

• Some new photos from the set of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides now appearing on-line. They’re filming these movies in Hawaii now instead of LA.  Whatever happened to those California tax incentives?

• Actor Chris Evans talks about his snappy new Captain America duds today. I wasn’t aware that they were actually setting this film in the 1940s-50s.  This project is looking better by the day.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … Model and Leonardo DiCaprio girlfriend Bar Refaeli, posing in the latest edition of V Magazine, speculates thoughtfully on the nature of her sex appeal today. Her theory is, I think, not lacking in insight – although surely limiting, in its own way.  Click on over for her full, detailed explication.

And that’s what’s happening today in the wonderful world of Hollywood.

Posted on July 7th, 2010 at 3:17pm.