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John Cusack

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Dear Reader: Please pay no attention to John Horn, who should be ashamed of himself today — not just for his facile collection of "lessons" studios have "learned" so far this summer, but for daring to suggest that The Happening was anything but a success for Fox and Manoj Night Shyamalan. The effrontery! Even the most casual of observers would know that Manoj's Mint has yielded more than $113 million worldwide in two weeks of release, which is more than fine for all parties involved. (Never mind the 66% drop during its second weekend — it's all profit for Manoj!) Then there's this silly matter of viewers rejecting darker-themed movies like War Inc. (John Cusack would beg to differ) and Horn's pedestrian observation that "Paramount is on fire." And anyway, that's not even accurate — Paramount has topped $1 billion for the year, and Universal is on fire. Christ, John — get it straight! [LAT]

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five questions

Comeback Kid John Cusack Wants A Word With Defamer

We'd spent no shortage of time around here in recent weeks lamenting John Cusack's one-two professional plunge of box-office allergic Grace is Gone and critic-allergic War, Inc. Then came last weekend, when War, Inc. nabbed the second-highest per-screen average in the country: $27,252, second only to Indiana Jones 4. Heady, eye-opening stuff, to be sure — but not quite as eye-opening as when Cusack actually phoned us an hour ago to talk about it.

"If I answer your questions, will you stop writing nasty shit about me?" he asked. Of course we could promise nothing (especially not with a Roland Emmerich collaboration on the horizon), but for now, anyway, it's hard to deny he's on to something with War, Inc. He tells us why after the jump.

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4:45 PM on Fri May 30 2008
By STV
18,308 views, 51 comments

defamer attractions

Indy's Box-Office Bullwhip Kills Uwe Boll, John Cusack and Rest of Competition


Defamer Attractions returns today with another round of movie scanning for your Memorial Day weekend. We already know you're planning at least two excursions to view Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (once out of drunken impulse, and once to make sure that really was the ending you saw before blacking out), but Indy alone does not a holiday make! At least one of the poor bastards sharing this opening weekend is bound to tank the worst, and yet another is a fine bit of foreign-language counterprogramming worth your consideration. And of course we've got a few new DVD choices for the agoraphobic, hungover and/or the cheapskates among us. As always, our opinions and projections are A) our own and B) impeccably fail-safe. Where should we start? More »

9:00 AM on Fri May 23 2008
By STV
3,712 views, 12 comments

Latest by n/a: Boll's "Postal" is opening on four screens? That is such an obvious ploy qualify for Oscar consideration and then wide release the title when the nominations come in. more »

bolled over

The Critics Speak: 'Postal' May Actually Be Better than 'Sex and the City'

We've been following the bouncing Uwe Boll for what seems like months now, but once the consummate self-promoter and sworn enemy of 279,452 filmgoers (and counting) wound up playing the victim in the Sunday New York Times, the shark was considered jumped. But an eagle-eyed tipster points out one of the more fascinating signs yet of the loathed filmmaker's resurgence: On a week when his new film Postal has reportedly been banned from multiplexes, it's also pulling a better Rotten Tomatoes score (33%) than "mainstream" offerings Made of Honor (12%), What Happens in Vegas (28%) and John Cusack's bomb-to-be War, Inc. (23%). It's also neck-and-neck with Sex and the City and a mere percentage point behind the tentpole Speed Racer, which is still stalled at the gate with 34% positive reviews. More »

11:30 AM on Tue May 20 2008
By STV
981 views, 2 comments

Latest by n/a: This guy won't go away and I look forward to watching his filmography grow and grow. more »

comebacks

Disaster Addict John Cusack to Drive Limo Into the Apocalypse

After the implosive one-two punch comprising his recent tandem War. Inc. and Grace is Gone (not to mention, of course, his spellbinding online short film featuring Diablo Cody as "Girl Who Thought He'd Be Cooler"), fortune may yet favor the slumping John Cusack. Or at least that's the only option our optimistic hearts will allow upon reading about the actor's reported next project, a massive-budget, honest-to-goodness end-of-the-world film by apocalypse maven Roland Emmerich:

John Cusack is in negotiations to star in director Roland Emmerich's (10,000 B.C., The Day After Tomorrow) new disaster movie 2012 for Sony Pictures. The title refers to the year the world is supposed to end after a global cataclysm. Cusack is negotiating to play Jackson Curtis, a divorced dad who alternates between writing and driving a limo. ...
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5:40 PM on Mon May 19 2008
By STV
2,695 views, 18 comments

defamer quiz

Who Said It: John Cusack, Diablo Cody Or Bob Ross?

Like an Iconoclasts that thanks you for the add, MySpaceTV's Artist on Artist pits star vs. star in a Battle Royale of Big Ideas and Mutual Tucheslecking. The only loser? You! See if you can pin the following quotes from Diablo Cody and John Cusack's recent Artist on Artist pairing to the appropriate speaker. To heighten the difficulty level a bit, we've also thrown in a few quotes from beloved TV landscape artist, Bob Ross: 1. "We met at the cast party for How I Met Your Mother, right? We were both pretty drunk... It was kind of a blackout haze."
2. "It was really cool though. It was you, me, and Alyson Hannigan just kind of hanging. Then we kind of broke off and got to talking about stuff that interested us as people. You know, as human beings."
3. "Then we texted for a while and then we hung out."
4. "I think people's reaction to art is often more about themselves than it is about the art. People really project, and they find parts of themselves in the things that they consume. And so it's always interesting to me sometimes the new ideas that people have about things that I didn't even intend to put in there. And that's what's kind of cool."
5. "And that makes it look like birch trees, isn't that sneaky? Heh. Ha. It's gorgeous." More »

5:15 PM on Mon May 5 2008
By Seth
3,872 views, 11 comments

Latest by Passwordforgetter: I love how when She's pitching the horror film He says "Oh, you mean of the era where horror films had drama and style?" and She goes "No, the era of crap". Of course he Lies and says "Oh, that's more »

everyone's a critic

John Cusack Disaster Reaffirms Iraq Films' Special Place in America's Heart

John Cusack's meander through his second-consecutive anti-war film is coming under heavy fire at the Tribeca Film Festival, where War, Inc. bowed this week to the kinds of reviews that made his previous Iraq entry — the $50,899-grossing Grace is Gone — positively shine in comparison. While he and his agent sift around for a more reliable rom-com follow-up, our preliminary poke through the wreckage yields yet more smoldering evidence that Iraq is officially over as a dramatic subject. We piece together the eyewitness testimony after the jump: More »

11:35 AM on Tue Apr 29 2008
By STV
3,271 views, 14 comments

Latest by Trixie from Toronto: @cinerama: Maybe Minnie wouldn't do it since apparently he broke her heart too, right before Matt Daymon did. more »

stalk of the town

John Cusack Rebuffs Fan's Attempts To Touch His Light, Heat

"Misunderstood" John Cusack fan Emily Leatherman was arrested Sunday outside the actor's home for violating the restraining order Cusack obtained in 2006 that stipulated she stay at least 500 feet away from him. Leatherman, who at the time explained that her actions were less about stalking Cusack and more about seeking his help to convince the police they should investigate her claim that she was drugged and raped in 2001, had taken a cab to Cusack's but couldn't pay the fare — a rom-com set-up if we ever saw one! But instead of covering the charge and then having Leatherman pay him back over a lengthy period of time (during which their improbable encounter would surely blossom into love and a satisfying marriage held in a taxi), the actor flagged down cops who had responded to the situation and told them the following: bitch crazy!

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11:55 AM on Tue Apr 1 2008
By Megan Lynn
1,911 views, 7 comments

Latest by fishwife: I want John Cusack to help me convince police of something too. Not sure what, but I know we can work it out together over a nice bottle of Merlot. I know he wants to. more »

junket ineptitude

Heir Apparent To Merry Miller's Legacy Thinks John Cusack Is Kevin Spacey


Pity John Cusack, who in the span of one junket for an earnest and well-meaning film has now been subjected to the advances of single-n'-ready-to-mingle The View guest hosts, The Chris Farley Show-caliber interviews with overzealous TV cooks, and now, this:

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9:29 AM on Mon Dec 31 2007
By Seth
7,687 views, 20 comments

fandom

Rachael Ray Does Her Impression Of A John Cusack-Convention Nerd


For American women of a certain age—let's say, somewhere around the Ricki Lake/Rachael Ray generation—the utterance of the very name John Cusack is enough to instantly reawaken first stirrings of celebrity puppy-love ecstasy. Give those women their own talk shows and a captive audience with the boombox-hoisting object of their romantic adolescent fantasies, however, and things can quickly get pretty awkward.

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5:45 PM on Wed Dec 12 2007
By Seth
16,624 views, 23 comments

more holiday love

Ricki Lake Bags Herself A Cusack On 'The View'


If you can manage to get past the slow preamble to this interview on The View with Grace Is Gone star John Cusack (truth be told, we drifted off ourselves, but we're almost positive we heard Sherri Shepherd asking the actor how he manages to so accurately recreate his performances each and every time she plays one of his movies on her Jesus-powered DVD player), there's a small reward waiting for you at the end:

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1:15 PM on Fri Dec 7 2007
By Seth
10,691 views, 11 comments

Latest by Trixie from Toronto: @Pomalina: Even though I wish desperately that I could have been one of the slutty dames on JC's call list, it's still disappointing knowing he's a hound. more »

short ends

Phil Spector Sports 'The Liza'

· Phil Spector showed off his new hairstyle at the closing arguments of his trial today, clearly hoping throwing some mid-'80s Liza the jury's way might earn him some last-minute sympathy votes.
· Michael Lohan has reportedly reunited with his estranged daughter Lindsay at Utah's Cirque Lodge, where he presented her with a brand new cartoon depicting her Denalijacking and subsequent arrest as yet another hilarious misadventure of the Archie gang.
· John Cusack gets real about his legacy.
· Good thing those Philadelphia morning show hosts didn't give away the promotional bullet-proof baby carriage.
· Time's "The 100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME" is surely going to be the source of much debate, beginning with the glaring absence of The Powerpuff Girls.

6:15 PM on Thu Sep 6 2007
By Seth
2,383 views, 17 comments

Latest by Magister: Good catch, gwendolyn;Without Golden Girls, the list isn't worth crap! more »

trade round-up

John Cusack's Action Hero Dreams Dashed

· We're impressed with Variety's show of headline-pun restraint with this one: The plug has been pulled on Stopping Power, Jan De Bont's planned action thriller starring John Cusack, after funding fell through at the last minute. [Variety]
· Conflicting with other reports, Ang Lee's Lust, Caution "thrilled" Venice audiences. One journalist asked if the graphic sexual sequences were real, to which the director responded, "Have you seen the film?" Funny—we always felt what The Hulk could have used were some Brown Bunnyesque elements. [Variety]
· ABC orders a script for The Fixer, about "the most powerful woman in New York." We knew it was only a matter of time before Leona Helmsley's dogwalker had her own show. [Variety]
· NBC and Apple have a parting of the ways, with NBC's content disappearing from iTunes as soon as December. Why can't Steve Jobs and Ben Silverman just iron this bullshit out over a couple of primo bong hits? [THR]
· Giovanni Ribisi is pulled in by the CAA Death Star's tractor beams. Run, Giovanni! They're nothing but a greedy and secretive institution that want to have undue influence over your life decisions! [THR]

11:30 AM on Fri Aug 31 2007
By Seth
1,721 views, 7 comments

Latest by Trai_Dep: It's great to see that Silverman's big move into the digital space is to try hiking the price of a 1/2 hr sitcom from $2 to $5, then insisting that consumers feel that the ITMS's DRM isn't severe enough. I more »

weinsteins

How Harvey Got His Groove Back

According to the Reporter, after winning an all-night, $4 million bidding war for the rights to John Cusack's Grace is Gone at Sundance, a resurgent Harvey Weinstein pounded his chest and issued forth this barbaric, dealmaking yawp, serving notice to the industry that Weinstein Co.'s misplaced groove has been reacquired: More »

11:35 AM on Mon Jan 22 2007
By Mark
73 views, 4 comments

jack black

Jack Black Falls Victim To Jeremy Piven's Grudge-Fueled Director Cock Block

In Part Two of today's series, Howard Stern Gets Celebrities To Openly Shit-Talk Other Celebrities, Page Six is reporting that Jack Black recently told Stern about a six-year grudge held against him by Jeremy Piven, claiming the bitch-hugging bachelor is still sore over having lost the part of the record store clerk in High Fidelity to the paunchy screen comic:
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12:09 PM on Thu Nov 16 2006
By Seth
1,352 views, 10 comments

trade roundup

Trade Round-Up: Freston's Fall From Viacom Grace Cushioned By Mattress Stuffed With $59 Million

Now we know the real reason that Sumner Redstone almost cried the night he fired Tom Freston: Freston's golden parachute just cost him $59 million for that one year on the job, plus millions more in consultant fees, deferred compensation, and his 401 (k). That's not just fuck-you money, that's fuck-you-and-everyone- who-looks-like-you money. [Variety]
Demonstrating its mandate to get faster, cheaper, and stupider, NBC orders 10 more episodes of 1 vs. 100—but then seemingly ignores orders from the corporate mothership by picking up six more scripts for newly verboten, expensive 8 pm drama Friday Night Lights. Maybe they fired the guy who's supposed to read the memos from Jeff Zucker. [THR]
John Cusack heads back into Grosse Pointe Blank territory by starring in, writing, and producing the dark political satire Brand Hauser: Stuff Happens, the story of an assassin sent to kill a Middle Eastern oil minister. The movie is set to shoot this month in Bulgaria, which probably tells you all you need to know about the budget. [Variety]
Focus Features buys the drama Underdog from Gideon Yago. Yup, exactly the Gideon Yago you're thinking of while shaking your head and asking, "The MTV kid? Seriously?" [THR]
Now that CBS has bored you so profoundly with endless procedural dramas and flavorless comedies that you can't even be bothered to change the channel, they're now going to try to slip in some edgier shows. Watch out, they're throwing out the rule book! Schlubby sitcom husbands might soon be able to pull only semi-hot wives! [Variety]

11:50 AM on Thu Oct 19 2006
By Mark
63 views, 3 comments

Latest by pseudopsych: Eat your heart out, Serena Altschul... more »

celeb jurisprudence

Alleged John Cusack Stalker Insists She's Just Misunderstood Penpal

Celebrity/stalker disagreements are almost always precarious matters—usually he-said/ she-screamed-incoherently affairs, with the truth lying somewhere in the gray area in between. In the case of John Cusack's alleged obsessor, Jennifer Leatherman, the actor filed and won a restraining order against the homeless 31-year-old, claiming she threw "long letters of interest over my fence in bags with rocks and screwdrivers inside." In an interview with the AP, however, Leatherman denied having catapulted the care packages into Cusack's yard, and resents the implication: More »

12:51 PM on Thu Jul 20 2006
By Seth
957 views, 5 comments

Latest by raincoaster: "You're not with me, Leatherman." more »

john cusack

Cusack Stalker Opts To Express Devotion With Bags Full Of Screwdrivers Instead Of Boombox Serenade

Even as his career might have lost some heat as it swerves temporarily into a spate of forgettable romcom projects, John Cusack's psychopathic, homeless stalker/future soulmate will never stop believing in him:
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12:58 PM on Tue Jun 27 2006
By Seth
1,478 views, 4 comments

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