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Movie: Golden Globe nominated Christina Aguilera in 'Burlesque'
ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 4/4/2010
Posts: 10,437
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Quote:
Originally posted by Genie00
OMG FIRST CRITIC REVIEW!!!!
Burlesque...Cher and Christina Aguilera shine
When Hollywood does song and dance movies badly you get Glitter. When it does it right you get Flashdance and Footloose. Hollywood's latest is Burlesque. Equal parts Chicago and a Pussycat Dolls show, Burlesque reminds us that T&A doesn't have to be shown to be sexy.
Burlesque's story is a bit Showgirls-esque. Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world (hey that's Journey, that is Journey), she took the mid-day bus going to Hollywood (ok that's just Welcome to the Jungle). But where Showgirls is Razzie-tastic, Burlesque has great performances from its stars and supporting cast.
Christina Aguilera stars as Ali, an Iowa farm girl with no family and big dreams of making it. She heads west to become a performer and soons find out they don't just give you a Grammy or a job when you step off the bus. After walking the streets of Los Angeles, she sees a girl standing on the stairs of a club. She walks in to see what's going on and is greeted by Alan ******* who won't let her in without the $20 cover charge. She hesitantly gives away one of her last $20 bills, but soon is amazed at what she sees in front of her. She is in club Burlesque. With scantily clad women dancing on stage to music, Ali knows she's found her calling. When bartender Jack (played by Twilight's Cam Gigandet) asks for her order and she only orders water, Jack knows Miss Iowa is new and tries to get her a job at the club. She weasels her way into a waitress job even though she longs for the stage.
When one of the dancers becomes pregnant, there are auditions for her replacement. Ali walks in on the auditions and forces Tess (Cher), the club owner, and Sean (Stanley Tucci), the stage manager and Tess's gay BFF, to watch her prove herself. She gets the job as a backup dancer. When rival lead dancer Nikki (Kristen Bell) pulls the audio during her performance, Ali sings and a star is born. The club becomes the place to be and Ali the "It" girl who saves it from closing.
Christina Aguilera has been a pop star for so long and her performance is very good that you forget that this is her first major acting job. Either she wasn't interested in acting or she waited for the perfect movie, but the former Dirrty singer will easily get more offers for film work. The petite powerhouse gives quite a surprise performance and was a major force in the film's music.
When you think of one word celebrities, you think Madonna, Bono, Bieber. But Cher created it. Love her or hate her, Cher is an icon. She's been in the game for decades, plural. She leaves for a few years and makes a comeback. Some of her tattoos are probably older than some of her co-stars, but Cher is back on top. If Tess wasn't specifically written for Cher, it should have been. Tess is quite similar to Gemma from Sons of Anarchy, a strong independent woman, but also motherly to the ones she loves. Ever the performer, Cher busts out a song and dance routine women a quarter of her age couldn't do.
But Burlesque also has fantastic supporting roles. Stanley Tucci might steal the movie. He's quick witted and the shoulder for Tess to cry on. He should easily get a Golden Globe nom for supporting act. Peter Gallagher plays Tess' ex-husband and club manager. Grey's Anatomy's McSteamy (Eric Dane) plays a rich, business man who wants to buy the club and the heart of Ali. Dancing with the Star's Julianne Hough plays a fellow dancer and the already mentioned Kristen Bell (who needs a hit badly), Alan ******* and Cam Gigandet play their roles respectively.
With the High School Musical generation aging into a Glee generation, Burlesque will be a hit. Surprisingly entertaining, Burlesque should find packed theaters opening weekend and high CD sales.
http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-bos...aguilera-shine
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OMFG. And it's a POSITIVE review.
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Member Since: 11/25/2008
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1st review postive.  
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Member Since: 6/16/2006
Posts: 12,884
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Either [Christina] wasn't interested in acting or she waited for the perfect movie, but the former Dirrty singer will easily get more offers for film work. The petite powerhouse gives quite a surprise performance and was a major force in the film's music.
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ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 4/4/2010
Posts: 10,437
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Quote:
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Christina Aguilera has been a pop star for so long and her performance is very good that you forget that this is her first major acting job. Either she wasn't interested in acting or she waited for the perfect movie, but the former Dirrty singer will easily get more offers for film work. The petite powerhouse gives quite a surprise performance and was a major force in the film's music.
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ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 4/4/2010
Posts: 10,437
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Oh I didn't see your post ROKR, sorry 
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Member Since: 6/16/2006
Posts: 12,884
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Quote:
Originally posted by AintNoOtherStan
Oh I didn't see your post ROKR, sorry |
Is this amazing or what???!!!
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ATRL Moderator
Member Since: 4/4/2010
Posts: 10,437
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Quote:
Originally posted by R`0`K`R
Is this amazing or what???!!!
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It's pretty amazing
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Member Since: 11/25/2008
Posts: 13,160
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Quote:
'Burlesque' went through bumps and grinds to make it to the big screen
Writer-director Steven Antin got backing of his partner, Clint Culpepper, the president of Screen Gems. But it wasn't smooth sailing.
Christina Aguilera isn't the first struggling pop diva to try to become a big-screen star. Sony Screen Gems isn't the first low-budget studio to gamble on a bigger-budget picture. And Steven Antin isn't the first filmmaker to get his big break from a romantic partner.
But "Burlesque," a PG-13 musical opening Thanksgiving weekend, is freighted with all these elements, making it one of the riskiest and most unusual projects to come out of Hollywood this year.
Antin wrote and directed the $55-million movie — which tells the story of an Iowa girl (Aguilera) who goes from barmaid to leading lady as a singer and dancer in a Sunset Strip club — at the urging of Clint Culpepper, the president of Screen Gems and Antin's partner of 20 years.
Get breaking entertainment news, delivered to your mobile phone. Text ENTERTAIN to 52669.
The fishnets-and-bustiers extravaganza marks Aguilera's acting debut as well as the return of 64-year-old Cher to a starring role after an absence of more than a decade. But following a difficult production filled with on-set conflicts and a new ending shot at the last minute, it's unclear whether "Burlesque" will strike box office cabaret gold à la "Chicago" or will become a laughingstock like "Showgirls" or Mariah Carey's bomb "Glitter."
"There's an incredible amount of pressure on me that this movie performs well," said Antin, 52, whose only previous feature directing credit was a straight-to-DVD thriller starring Angie Harmon, also made for Screen Gems. "I know what it means for a studio to say yes and give you a lot of money."
Indeed, Antin has had a front-row view into the workings of showbiz at many levels over the years. His mother was a television executive, and he started acting at age 9, in a variety of roles including the film "Goonies" and TV's " NYPD Blue." His brother, Jonathan, is a celebrity hairstylist who was featured on the Bravo reality show "Blow Out." His sister, Robin, founded the Pussycat Dolls, a burlesque pop group. And before meeting Culpepper, Antin was romantically involved with music and film mogul David Geffen.
Antin's post-acting career has involved movie and TV projects, but nothing on the scale of directing a high-profile feature film. He wrote and starred in a movie accepted at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, created the short-lived 2000 WB network teen soap opera "Young Americans," and produced reality shows starring the Pussycat Dolls. However, he acknowledges that many will see "Burlesque" as a movie that got made only because a studio executive did a favor for his boyfriend.
"I'm somewhat concerned about that, but ultimately, I know the truth," Antin said over lunch at the Polo Lounge, an entertainment industry hotspot where he frequently ate with his family while growing up. "No one gets a movie greenlit based on a relationship."
Screen Gems typically spends less than $30 million making its pictures and gravitates toward horror, action and teen comedies. It put more than twice that sum, before the benefit of a state tax credit, into making "Burlesque." Nevertheless, Culpepper, who noted that he has worked with 18 first-time directors in his career at Screen Gems, said he never even considered another director for the project.
"I thought that if the fact that we have a relationship going back 20 years is our biggest problem, we'd come out OK," Culpepper said of working with Antin. "There is no one else I would have had complete confidence in to make this movie like I did with Steven. I don't think I would have made 'Burlesque' with a stranger."
Before getting a green light to make "Burlesque," Antin met several times with Culpepper's boss, Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal, to convince her he was the right man for the job — and that he could land A-list talent.
Attracting big-name stars was one of the primary hurdles for "Burlesque," a project that Antin and Culpepper had discussed since the late 1990s but didn't gain momentum until several years ago, when the executive learned Aguilera was seeking a film role.
The singer said she was impressed by the intense preparation of Antin, who assembled hundreds of drawings, photographs and set models in an effort to recruit his leading ladies. "You could just tell this man had an appreciation of a woman's beauty in the most amazing, flattering, unbelievable way and I knew he was going to shoot me good," said Aguilera, adding that she decided to "throw caution to the wind" to work with Antin, despite his inexperience.
Aguilera's film debut comes in the wake of disappointing sales for her June album, "Bionic," and the postponement of a planned 20-city tour this past summer. Last month, the 29-year-old filed for divorce from her husband of five years.
Cher was a tougher sell than Aguilera. She got the script via her friend Geffen, who knew about the project because Antin and Culpepper had worked on it during a 10-day vacation on the mogul's yacht.
After the Oscar-winner met at her Malibu home with Culpepper, Antin and producer Donald De Line (a longtime friend of the couple), she hemmed and hawed — ultimately squeezing all of her time on set into less than 20 days of the four-month production.
"She tried to pull out of it so many times, and everyone said she wouldn't do it," Culpepper said. "When we started shooting, she told me, 'I made your life such hell.'" Cher was not available for comment.
As he revised the story at his stars' request, Antin tried to maintain a particular tone. "I really wanted it to be light and breezy, because I felt that any drama set in the world of burlesque ends up feeling like melodrama," said Antin, whose script passed through uncredited rewrites by such experienced hands as Susannah Grant ("Erin Brockovich") and John Patrick Shanley ("Moonstruck").
Behind-the-scenes drama continued after production began last November in Los Angeles. Shooting took more than 70 days — unusually lengthy for anything but a blockbuster event film — because extensive takes from numerous angles were needed for more than a dozen musical numbers.
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Just a nice little article.
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Member Since: 9/7/2008
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Member Since: 5/9/2010
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Christina is gonna get her OSCAR, then she will be offered a billion scripts and she will become a true legend in Music & Flim.
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Member Since: 6/16/2006
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Do struggling pop stars get paid 1 million to sing for 1 hour? I don't think so 
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Member Since: 4/29/2010
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I was not here for like what 3h and all THIS happends!!!!! My god!!!!!
This 2 clips we got are amazing!!! And the review!!! damn!
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Member Since: 4/29/2010
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Member Since: 9/7/2008
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Member Since: 5/1/2007
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Quote:
Originally posted by Genie00
OMG FIRST CRITIC REVIEW!!!!
Burlesque...Cher and Christina Aguilera shine
When Hollywood does song and dance movies badly you get Glitter. When it does it right you get Flashdance and Footloose. Hollywood's latest is Burlesque. Equal parts Chicago and a Pussycat Dolls show, Burlesque reminds us that T&A doesn't have to be shown to be sexy.
Burlesque's story is a bit Showgirls-esque. Just a small town girl, livin' in a lonely world (hey that's Journey, that is Journey), she took the mid-day bus going to Hollywood (ok that's just Welcome to the Jungle). But where Showgirls is Razzie-tastic, Burlesque has great performances from its stars and supporting cast.
Christina Aguilera stars as Ali, an Iowa farm girl with no family and big dreams of making it. She heads west to become a performer and soons find out they don't just give you a Grammy or a job when you step off the bus. After walking the streets of Los Angeles, she sees a girl standing on the stairs of a club. She walks in to see what's going on and is greeted by Alan ******* who won't let her in without the $20 cover charge. She hesitantly gives away one of her last $20 bills, but soon is amazed at what she sees in front of her. She is in club Burlesque. With scantily clad women dancing on stage to music, Ali knows she's found her calling. When bartender Jack (played by Twilight's Cam Gigandet) asks for her order and she only orders water, Jack knows Miss Iowa is new and tries to get her a job at the club. She weasels her way into a waitress job even though she longs for the stage.
When one of the dancers becomes pregnant, there are auditions for her replacement. Ali walks in on the auditions and forces Tess (Cher), the club owner, and Sean (Stanley Tucci), the stage manager and Tess's gay BFF, to watch her prove herself. She gets the job as a backup dancer. When rival lead dancer Nikki (Kristen Bell) pulls the audio during her performance, Ali sings and a star is born. The club becomes the place to be and Ali the "It" girl who saves it from closing.
Christina Aguilera has been a pop star for so long and her performance is very good that you forget that this is her first major acting job. Either she wasn't interested in acting or she waited for the perfect movie, but the former Dirrty singer will easily get more offers for film work. The petite powerhouse gives quite a surprise performance and was a major force in the film's music.
When you think of one word celebrities, you think Madonna, Bono, Bieber. But Cher created it. Love her or hate her, Cher is an icon. She's been in the game for decades, plural. She leaves for a few years and makes a comeback. Some of her tattoos are probably older than some of her co-stars, but Cher is back on top. If Tess wasn't specifically written for Cher, it should have been. Tess is quite similar to Gemma from Sons of Anarchy, a strong independent woman, but also motherly to the ones she loves. Ever the performer, Cher busts out a song and dance routine women a quarter of her age couldn't do.
But Burlesque also has fantastic supporting roles. Stanley Tucci might steal the movie. He's quick witted and the shoulder for Tess to cry on. He should easily get a Golden Globe nom for supporting act. Peter Gallagher plays Tess' ex-husband and club manager. Grey's Anatomy's McSteamy (Eric Dane) plays a rich, business man who wants to buy the club and the heart of Ali. Dancing with the Star's Julianne Hough plays a fellow dancer and the already mentioned Kristen Bell (who needs a hit badly), Alan ******* and Cam Gigandet play their roles respectively.
With the High School Musical generation aging into a Glee generation, Burlesque will be a hit. Surprisingly entertaining, Burlesque should find packed theaters opening weekend and high CD sales.
http://www.examiner.com/movie-in-bos...aguilera-shine
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I think we might be stating "Golden Globe nominee Christina Aguilera" in about two months 
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Member Since: 11/25/2008
Posts: 13,160
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Quote:
Originally posted by Raguabros
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She's already a GG nominee, with her 1st year in the biz. 
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Member Since: 5/9/2010
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Golden Globe Awards
Year Nominated work Award Result
1998 Reflection Best Original Song Nominated
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Member Since: 9/7/2008
Posts: 12,807
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Quote:
Originally posted by Genie00
Golden Globe Awards
Year Nominated work Award Result
1998 Reflection Best Original Song Nominated
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Member Since: 9/7/2008
Posts: 12,807
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Member Since: 9/7/2008
Posts: 12,807
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LA Times: Burlesque budget was >>> 60 million.
Quote:
'Burlesque' went through bumps and grinds to make it to the big screen
Writer-director Steven Antin got backing of his partner, Clint Culpepper, the president of Screen Gems. But it wasn't smooth sailing.
Paula Van Oppen, left, Christina Aguilera and Chelsea Traille in "Burlesque." (Screen Gems)
Christina Aguilera isn't the first struggling pop diva to try to become a big-screen star. Sony Screen Gems isn't the first low-budget studio to gamble on a bigger-budget picture. And Steven Antin isn't the first filmmaker to get his big break from a romantic partner.
But "Burlesque," a PG-13 musical opening Thanksgiving weekend, is freighted with all these elements, making it one of the riskiest and most unusual projects to come out of Hollywood this year.
Antin wrote and directed the $55-million movie — which tells the story of an Iowa girl (Aguilera) who goes from barmaid to leading lady as a singer and dancer in a Sunset Strip club — at the urging of Clint Culpepper, the president of Screen Gems and Antin's partner of 20 years.
Get breaking entertainment news, delivered to your mobile phone. Text ENTERTAIN to 52669.
The fishnets-and-bustiers extravaganza marks Aguilera's acting debut as well as the return of 64-year-old Cher to a starring role after an absence of more than a decade. But following a difficult production filled with on-set conflicts and a new ending shot at the last minute, it's unclear whether "Burlesque" will strike box office cabaret gold à la "Chicago" or will become a laughingstock like "Showgirls" or Mariah Carey's bomb "Glitter."
"There's an incredible amount of pressure on me that this movie performs well," said Antin, 52, whose only previous feature directing credit was a straight-to-DVD thriller starring Angie Harmon, also made for Screen Gems. "I know what it means for a studio to say yes and give you a lot of money."
Indeed, Antin has had a front-row view into the workings of showbiz at many levels over the years. His mother was a television executive, and he started acting at age 9, in a variety of roles including the film "Goonies" and TV's " NYPD Blue." His brother, Jonathan, is a celebrity hairstylist who was featured on the Bravo reality show "Blow Out." His sister, Robin, founded the Pussycat Dolls, a burlesque pop group. And before meeting Culpepper, Antin was romantically involved with music and film mogul David Geffen.
Antin's post-acting career has involved movie and TV projects, but nothing on the scale of directing a high-profile feature film. He wrote and starred in a movie accepted at the 1993 Sundance Film Festival, created the short-lived 2000 WB network teen soap opera "Young Americans," and produced reality shows starring the Pussycat Dolls. However, he acknowledges that many will see "Burlesque" as a movie that got made only because a studio executive did a favor for his boyfriend.
"I'm somewhat concerned about that, but ultimately, I know the truth," Antin said over lunch at the Polo Lounge, an entertainment industry hotspot where he frequently ate with his family while growing up. "No one gets a movie greenlit based on a relationship."
Screen Gems typically spends less than $30 million making its pictures and gravitates toward horror, action and teen comedies. It put more than twice that sum, before the benefit of a state tax credit, into making "Burlesque." Nevertheless, Culpepper, who noted that he has worked with 18 first-time directors in his career at Screen Gems, said he never even considered another director for the project.
"I thought that if the fact that we have a relationship going back 20 years is our biggest problem, we'd come out OK," Culpepper said of working with Antin. "There is no one else I would have had complete confidence in to make this movie like I did with Steven. I don't think I would have made 'Burlesque' with a stranger."
Before getting a green light to make "Burlesque," Antin met several times with Culpepper's boss, Sony Pictures co-chairman Amy Pascal, to convince her he was the right man for the job — and that he could land A-list talent.
Attracting big-name stars was one of the primary hurdles for "Burlesque," a project that Antin and Culpepper had discussed since the late 1990s but didn't gain momentum until several years ago, when the executive learned Aguilera was seeking a film role.
The singer said she was impressed by the intense preparation of Antin, who assembled hundreds of drawings, photographs and set models in an effort to recruit his leading ladies. "You could just tell this man had an appreciation of a woman's beauty in the most amazing, flattering, unbelievable way and I knew he was going to shoot me good," said Aguilera, adding that she decided to "throw caution to the wind" to work with Antin, despite his inexperience.
Aguilera's film debut comes in the wake of disappointing sales for her June album, "Bionic," and the postponement of a planned 20-city tour this past summer. Last month, the 29-year-old filed for divorce from her husband of five years.
Cher was a tougher sell than Aguilera. She got the script via her friend Geffen, who knew about the project because Antin and Culpepper had worked on it during a 10-day vacation on the mogul's yacht.
After the Oscar-winner met at her Malibu home with Culpepper, Antin and producer Donald De Line (a longtime friend of the couple), she hemmed and hawed — ultimately squeezing all of her time on set into less than 20 days of the four-month production.
"She tried to pull out of it so many times, and everyone said she wouldn't do it," Culpepper said. "When we started shooting, she told me, 'I made your life such hell.'" Cher was not available for comment.
As he revised the story at his stars' request, Antin tried to maintain a particular tone. "I really wanted it to be light and breezy, because I felt that any drama set in the world of burlesque ends up feeling like melodrama," said Antin, whose script passed through uncredited rewrites by such experienced hands as Susannah Grant ("Erin Brockovich") and John Patrick Shanley ("Moonstruck").
Behind-the-scenes drama continued after production began last November in Los Angeles. Shooting took more than 70 days — unusually lengthy for anything but a blockbuster event film — because extensive takes from numerous angles were needed for more than a dozen musical numbers.
Culpepper was on set regularly, a rarity for an executive of his rank. But his presence wasn't always a calming one. People familiar with the matter, who asked not be identified so as not to jeopardize professional ties, said he frequently clashed with Antin over budgetary and creative issues, with arguments sometimes turning into screaming matches.
"There were moments where I think everyone needed a time-out," Aguilera recalled. "They had different opinions and were constantly hashing things out. It was an interesting ride."
Antin said that working in a professional capacity with his partner presented "hard waters to navigate." To ease the tension, he said, he and Culpepper tried not to discuss the film at home — and Antin actually moved into the Sunset Tower for much of production because he said he liked the ease of a "hotel environment" during a stressful time.
Several weeks ago, Antin filmed a new ending, changing it from a "Pretty Woman" homage that test audiences found derivative to a more intimate reunion between Aguilera's character and her love interest, played by "Twilight's" Cam Gigandet.
Get breaking entertainment news, delivered to your mobile phone. Text ENTERTAIN to 52669.
That wasn't the only last-minute switch. Antin lobbied Screen Gems executives to alter the film's advertising campaign after an overly serious trailer this summer was poorly received. The Wall Street Journal said the preview made the movie look like "A 'Showgirls' for the 21st century."
The studio has since refocused advertisements — which have run on shows such as "Dancing With the Stars" and "Glee" — to emphasize the film's light-hearted tone. Billboards, meanwhile, feature the faces of Aguilera and Cher with the slogan: "It takes a legend to make a star."
"Cher and Christina elevate this movie into an event," said De Line, the producer. "People will want to see what drew them to the big screen."
"Burlesque" will face fierce competition when it debuts in less than two weeks against "Love & Other Drugs," a romantic comedy going after a similar female audience. Its release will come just five days after the expected blockbuster "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I."
Opening weekend box office and subsequent word-of-mouth could make or break Aguilera's big-screen aspirations, as well as Antin's hopes of directing more films. Pre-release audience surveys indicate the film is generating solid if not spectacular interest among women, particularly younger ones.
Culpepper maintained that while "Burlesque" doesn't quite fit a typical Hollywood mold, he sees a happy ending for his studio, his star and his partner.
"We make films for targeted audiences and this is a movie that we made for women," he said. "Any female with a heartbeat is going to love 'Burlesque.'"
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http://www.latimes.com/entertainment...tory?track=rss
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