• Filthy Madonna

    After time served as pop star, actress, model, cheesecake auteur, teenage pregnancy debate flashpoint, capitalist, professional celebrity, marketing guru, dancer, trophy wife, bogus accent advocate, Kaballist, children's book author, and for all we know astronaut, Madonna can finally add "feature film director" to her ridiculously rambunctious résumé.

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    Posted Feb 14 2008, 10:45 AM by Leonard Pierce with | with no comments
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  • Wristcutters Rocks

    In the surprisingly non-shitty Wristcutters: A Love Story, which opens Friday, there's a weird in-joke that, if nothing else, is the most innovative use of a hipster soundtrack I've heard in years. For the road trip portion of the film — an after-life short story of sorts — Patrick Fugit's Zia is accompanied by one Eugene, played by Shea Wigham. Eugene is said to be a Russian punk-rocker; then he cranks up "his band," which turns out to be the much-beloved NYC institution Gogol Bordello. If you've never heard them before, you'll want to pick up a copy of their album Multi Contra Kulti vs. Irony after hearing its key songs played over and over in this film. They're awesome.

    The weird, meta part: director Goran Dukic is friends with Bordello frontman Eugene Hutz. When I first saw the Eugene character, I was positive Hutz was playing himself: the leering sexuality and trademark mustache are fully in place. But no: Wigham is a nice American boy from Tallahassee. So what we have is an American actor playing a Russian character based on a Ukrainian rocker of the same first name who listens to the music created by the fictional character but actually created by the real inspiration, who's only on-screen in doppelganger form. Very confusing. — Vadim Rizov
    Posted Oct 17 2007, 01:00 PM by Peter Smith with | with no comments
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