I was in the mood for something romantic and girly over the weekend, so I ended up seeing One Day, the film that I proclaimed, at one point, that I was never going to see. I read the book, and loved the book… up until the last third of the novel. Then I got so pissed off, I swore up and down that I wasn’t going to get involved. When the previews for the film came out, I once again swore I wasn’t going to see it, this time because Anne Hathaway’s faux English accent seemed wonky as hell, and because Jim “Pillow Weeper” Sturgess wasn’t my idea of Dexter. So… I guess I have to suck it up. I not only saw the movie, but I enjoyed it. Maybe it helped that I walked in with such low expectations. Or maybe it’s a better movie than you’ve heard.

For those unfamiliar with the story, the basic gist is: Dexter (Sturgess) and Emma (Hathaway) meet and sort-of hookup on their last day of university, on July 15. The book and the film follows Dexter and Emma on every July 15th for the next twenty years, through triumphs and heartbreaks and love and loss. As far as the film being a faithful adaptation of the book, it worked out very well. Surprisingly well, I have to admit. The kept a lot of the book in there, and they even let Hathaway have all of the funniest lines, which is true of Emma in the book. And they kept Dexter a mess, which is also true to the book.

As for the performances of the two leads… I was impressed. They had a great deal of chemistry together, despite the weird little oddness that they kind of look like brother and sister (true story – they look A LOT alike). Anne’s accent work wasn’t her best, but for the majority of the film, it wasn’t actively bad. There were only a couple of scenes where I was like, “She sounds less English and more like she’s had a stroke.” Sturgess did a wonderful job as a privileged boy who never quite gets it together, and true to his Pillow Weeper moniker, Jim cried and cried and cried. That boy can pull out the waterworks at the drop of a hat, and he’s a better weeper than Anne. But he had moments of real sexiness, and he and Anne played off of each other beautifully.

Two weird little things – Patricia Clarkson has a wonderful little part as Dexter’s glamorous and then tragic mother, and I swear, her accent work was worse than Anne’s. I love Clarkson, so that pains me. Surely they could have found a glamorous English actress for that part, right? Second weirdness: the casting of one of my favorite up-and-coming girls, Romola Garai (see her IMDB here) – she looks like Drew Barrymore and she’s one of the most talented young actresses in the UK (she’s currently starring in the new, wonderful BBC show The Hour). Romola appears in maybe many scenes later in the movie, playing an unsympathetic character that no one cared for in the book, and she made the character extremely sympathetic and lovely, and Romola stole every scene she was in. It struck me that Romola would have been a wonderful choice to play Emma, and in a few years, she IS going to be getting lead roles in Hollywood films. She’s lovely.

So, would I recommend this movie? Go see it if you’re in the mood for a romance, and you don’t mind having a good cry. It will be a good rental too.

Photos courtesy of Fame & WENN.

Last night was the big NYC premiere of One Day, that Anne Hathaway-Jim Sturgess film that I’m worried about. I’m worried about Anne’s wonky accent, I’m worried that The Pillow-Weeper isn’t going to be good enough to play Dexter, I’m worried that this movie seems to be getting dumped in the dead of August, where movies go to die. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing – I read the book, and I’m not as in love with the story as some people, so maybe Anne and Jim and everyone involved are just trying to get through minimal film promotion with as little attention as possible.

As for Anne’s dress… it’s McQueen. It’s pretty and it says “fun party frock”. Look at how tiny her little waist is! She wasn’t always this skinny – they say that she’s been training really hard for The Dark Knight Rises, so this is probably the most fit she’s ever been. To me, she doesn’t really look “pulled together” but I suspect she just threw this on in between her Catwoman film schedule. Sidenote: did you hear that Catwoman/Selina Kyle has “a history of abuse and works as a stripper and is also a pickpocket”? Anne Hathaway as a stripper… interesting.

As for Jim “Pillow Weeper” Sturgess… he looks good. Not particularly masculine or heartthrobby or anything, but he looks presentable and attractive. The itty-bitty bangs trauma still kills me, though. As do his weepy eyes. Also: I added a photo of Patricia Clarkson – she plays Jim/Dexter’s mother in the film.

Would you like the trailer for One Day again? Here you go!

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I’ve been calling Jim Sturgess a pillow-weeper for so long, I kind of forgot that he doesn’t just exist as a vague, watery-eyed image that speaks “One thrust and weeps into a pillow” for everyone. He’s in a new movie with Anne Hathaway called One Day, and the trailer was just recently released. Now, I read the book (by David Nicholls) several months ago after Lainey raved about it. I really, really enjoyed the book until the last 60 pages or so, but I won’t spoil the story for you. So here’s what the film is about in broad terms: Anne plays Emma (“Em”), a studious, dorky, funny English girl, and Jim plays Dexter (“Dex”), a hip, cool, English boy. They meet on their graduation day at University of Edinburgh in 1988. The book follows them for the next twenty years, year after year on the same day that they met. Here’s the trailer:

I don’t hate the trailer. Lainey does – she thinks the trailer makes the film sound like one of those interchangeable Jennifer Aniston/Katherine Heigl rom-coms. Considering that I ended up hating the book (after loving the first three quarters of it), I tend to think the trailer gives me a nice taste of what to expect. I’m not too impressed with what I heard of Anne’s accent work, but I’m impressed with how grungy and dorky Anne is looking – Em is supposed to be quite a hot mess for a number of years, so at least they’re not making her “Hollywood dorky” – which is like giving Anne a blowout, a face full of perfect makeup, and then just putting glasses on her. Anne looks truly flat-out unattractive in some of the little clips, so good for her and good for them.

As for Jim… damn, I find myself being attracted to a pillow-weeper. What is the world coming to? He looks really skuzzy-hot in parts of the trailer. YAY! Huzzah for pillow-weepers!

But still, I know what happens, so I probably won’t see this in the theater. But now I know that I’ll be renting it.

Posters & ‘One Day’ promotional images from various sources. Additional photos courtesy of WENN.

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I really wanted to cover this interview with Colin Farrell and Jim Sturgess on British talkshow Chatty Man. I’ve never been a huge Colin Farrell fan, as I saw an interview with him in the DVD extras for In Bruges and he pretty much chain smoked the entire time. Yes that’s a very superficial reason not to like an otherwise gorgeous ruddy guy with a dreamy accent, and after watching this latest interview I think I’m willing to get over it. Lainey at Lainey Gossip found this gem, and as she points out Colin is in fine form, making sex jokes constantly and pretty much making us melt. These two were promoting The Way Back, based on the true story of soldiers who escaped from a Siberian prison camp in WWII. Strugess was cute but not that interesting to me. It was Colin who really stuck out, with his bawdy humor and the way he opened up about his stint in rehab. (Lainey says he’s always been candid about rehab, but it’s somewhat new to me.)

On what advice he would give to Jim Sturgess [7:10 in the video above]
I’m not the person… I could give you a list of rehabs which are the nice places to go.

The benefits of going to the rehab in the Caribbean as opposed to the more frigid northern reaches…

Take the sex tape with you
A way to… decent angle when you’re making a sex tape.
Here’s one… Jim is in a stable relationship with a beautiful woman, but if you find yourself making a sex tape, take the tape with you.

I wouldn’t be the man to be giving advice.

On rehab
Nice people, no lights, no cameras, you spend some time on a couch. It was lovely, I really thought it was lovely… it’s seldom that you find yourselves in an environment where there are a bunch of people who are trying to make their lives better, consciously… It was 20 of us, and it went in a rotation… it was really, really cool.

Initially I woke up going I didn’t even know where I was. Rehab – oh no! It’s like the ultimate cliche… Then you start to come out of the funk that got you in there and the world takes a bit of a different sheen and when you come out it’s terrifying… the noise and everything is in sharp focus. It was an interesting time.

[From Chatty Man interview, video above]

That was one of the nicest interviews I’ve seen in a long time. Farrell was naughty, but self deprecating, genuine and so open. The guy could blow smoke in my face all night and I’d sit there and take it. He could do a lot more to me too. (Again, I blame Kaiser for getting me to think this way. As if Farrell doesn’t do a good enough job of that on his own.)

Colin is shown on 12/8 and 12/13/10. Credit: WENN.com

Today was the first photo call for The Way Back, that crapfest-looking “wandering around the snow and desert, because we’re Jews” film. I would have saved this one for the links, but the photos were just too, too perfect to not write about. First of all, Colin Farrell, ladies and gentlemen. He looks good, doesn’t he? Like, he’s healthy and he’s sleeping and eating properly, and he’s not running around partying and making mischief with every trollop out there. My Spidey sense tells me that he’s already got another girlfriend, honestly. It’s his air of containment… it says to me that he’s got a regular partner. Just a theory.

Also in the film: Jim Sturgess. I know some of you like him. I think I understand it – he’s one of those femme boys with their emotions and he’s all artsy and “deep” right? That’s why you like him? Well, he could very well be all of those things, but the boy is also a pillow-weeper. Just my opinion, but I stand by it: Jim Sturgess weeps after orgasm. His, not yours. He has to be “sensitive”. He has to hold your hand and talk about his “sadness”. That’s how he gets you into bed, where he pumps for a full minute, then bursts into tears. Trust me.

Ed Harris – I love him, but the man looks like death. Are we sure that he hasn’t already passed?

Little Saoirse Ronan! God, she’s growing up and she’s becoming ridiculously beautiful. God, I hope Colin isn’t nailing her.

Here’s the trailer for The Way Back. It really looks so dumb.

Photos courtesy of WENN.

I’ve been dying to see the new movie ’21,’ which tells the story of some super-smart MIT math nerds who make big bucks counting cards in Las Vegas. I read the book it’s based on, “Bringing Down the House,” and the film stars one of my favorite new actors, Jim Sturgess, who was fantastic in “Across the Universe.” Now, Kate Bosworth, who co-stars in the film as Jim Sturgess’ love interest, reveals how they prepared to do a steamy love scene- they got hammered.

The 25-year-old actress cannot recall shooting her love scene with Jim Sturgess for 21, she told PEOPLE at Wednesday’s Cinema Society and Calvin Klein Jeans-sponsored screening of the film in Manhattan.

“We were both so drunk,” the Superman Returns star said. “Jim and I became such good friends, we decided to have a couple of drinks, loosen up and go for it.”

Sturgess – who plays the lead in the shot-on-location casino flick, based on Ben Mezrich’s book, Bringing Down the House: The Inside Story of Six MIT Students Who Took Vegas for Millions – has similarly fuzzy recollections.

“We were on Grey Goose, I think,” said the British actor. “It was brilliant for about half and an hour. As we continued to drink … it just became sloppy and messy. I couldn’t stand up at one point.”

[From People]

I always wondered how actors got through these loves scenes- now it makes perfect sense. From what I’ve read, shooting these kinds of scenes are no picnic- there you are, often buck naked with someone you barely know, while an entire film crew is standing around talking and telling you what to do. Then again, Jim Sturgess is adorable, and I know many women who’d happily brave all that discomfort for the chance to smooch him. If you haven’t seen him yet in “Across the Universe,” do yourself a favor and rent it.

Kate Bosworth is shown after having lunch with friends on 3/30/08, thanks to Splash News. I find her outfit kind of fascinating and can’t decide if I like it or not.