“The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.”

Stephen King, The Gunslinger

Not since Fallen in 1998 has a movie been made where God is so clearly on the side of Denzel Washington, and not since Kalifornia has such a violent road movie come along. Well, that may or may not be true. There has been an abundance of road films and post-apocalyptic films over the last decade or so, to the point where it has become quite a trick to make one of them stand out from the crowd. But directors Albert and Allen Hughes have done it with The Book of Eli, a film about a desolated future not all that far off, where the few remaining members of mankind are struggling to rebuild the world that they’ve lost. Or kill, rape, eat, or steal from each other. Whichever’s easier.

In the middle of this gigantic chaos of emptiness is the movie’s thinly veiled Jesus figure Eli (Denzel Washington). You’ll know which one he is because he’ll be the guy with the name-tag that says “Hi! My name is Eli.” He’s given that name because ‘Eli’ can be found in the word ‘religion,’ which means they can highlight it in red in that poster with Gary Oldman where it says “Religion is Power.” “Eli” can also be found in the word “believe,” as can “lie,” but I digress.

So anyway, Eli has been wandering west across the desolate landscape of America for, get this, 30 years, trying to find the rightful place for this book he’s carrying, which a voice in his head told him to take west.

I know, 30 years, right? Seriously? I’m not sure if this is meant to poke holes in the infallibility of faith, because that’s what was guiding Eli, but if he had been walking for 30 years, I’m going to go ahead and assume that he got pretty thoroughly lost more than once. Or maybe the Hughes brothers just wanted to throw in a little homage to Andrew C.K. (check Youtube for “everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy”). Personally I just thought it was a bit too much exaggeration in C.K.’s attempt to get a good laugh, but evidently the Hughes brothers were impressed.

So anyway, it’s strange that a description of the plot could sound so powerfully goofy, but the movie really is highly entertaining and brilliantly photographed. It also contains several outstanding performances, including from Gary Oldman as the thinly veiled Satan figure, who has dispatched all of his minions with the mission of recovering the Book. He’s also the passage across which the Hughes brothers deliver a scathing message to the religious masses.

“The book is a weapon aimed right at the hearts and minds of the weak and the desperate! It will give us control of them!”

Then again, Carnegie is the devil incarnate and can’t be expected to come forth with many glowing remarks about the Good Word, so I hope that most of our friends in the religious community managed to avoid any feelings of resentment.

I love the way the film is photographed probably more than anything else, by the way. It is shot all in dull blues and grays and browns, giving the deserted American landscape a perfect feeling of desolation and destruction. Mankind was wiped out by what Eli calls “the flash” (an unfortunate solar event that killed nearly everyone on the planet, adding new meaning to the name of Mila Kunis’s character Solara, and also destroyed all but a single Bible), leaving the remnants of mankind living in a soulless wasteland ruled by warlords like Carnegie, who send out gangs of scary bikers to do their bidding in between rapes and assaults and murders and such. The only good place to be in a such a world is in the movie theater with us.

Post-apocalyptic movies are generally rich with opportunities for catastrophic screw-ups, and the Hughes brothers manage to avoid mostly all of them. They can’t resist having a gigantic cliché for an antagonist, or populating his personal army with goofy tough guys taken right out of Mad Max, but you may very well be surprised to find some interesting and original additions to the genre, and these should be noted, despite other shortcomings like a bizarre ending that creates more questions than it answers. I really liked where they end up at the end of the movie, and what they discover there, but there are certain character developments that might have been just slightly overshooting in the symbolism department.

Nevertheless, let’s all remember that it’s still January, and January is famously the off-season at the movies. Did You Hear About the Morgans? and Leap Year are two immediate train wrecks already well on their way to oblivion, but I’m happy to say that in just the first few weeks of this year we have gotten Daybreakers and The Book of Eli, both much better than we have come to expect from Januaries. If this keeps up, 2010 may very well shape up to be a great year at the movies!

The Bean Meter

While we here at HOLLYWIRE are counting down the days to Christmas with Hollywood Hotties, Maxim kicked off the “best eight days of the year” with Hanukkah Hotties.  Check out the pics of “some of the sexiest Jews known to Moses.”

Who’s your favorite Hanukkah Hottie?

For a great deal on a subscription to Maxim, click here: Maxim magazine.

Oh, are you in for a treat! Here’s the Top 10 of Maxim’s Top 100 Hottest Women…

#1 Well, I don’t think Olivia Wilde deserved #1…I don’t think she’s hotter than Megan Fox at all.  But, on a sidenote: after doing a search for her on the interwebs, I found out her birth name was Olivia Jane Cockburn.  That must’ve been a horrible for her as a child, so let’s just let her enjoy her #1 spot as a make-up for all the ridicule she probably got through the growing years!

#2 Megan Fox, hot as usual… while we all appreciate her, it seems as though maybe Scarlett Johansson might not after Fox’s comments in Esquire magazine.

#3 Bar Rafael–beautiful model made famous by dating none other than Leonardo Di Caprio.  Oh, he loves to date those models doesn’t he?

#4 Beauty runs in the blood in Malin Akerman’s family as her mother was also a model.  Us girls will probably best know her for her role as the younger sister in 27 Dresses, while the guys likely remember her as Silk Spectre II in the Watchmen.  I think we should all be on the lookout for more from Malin.

#5 OMG, who doesn’t love the beautiful Mila Kunis?!  From the moment I saw her on Forgetting Sarah Marshall, she instantly became one of my favs.  I really hope she’ll continue to do more romantic comedies.  And, you’ve got to appreciate her previous role on That ’70s Show & that she is the voice of Meg Griffin from Family Guy–she’s just the ultimate actress (I think so anyway!).

#6  Eliza Dushku, well, I don’t have much to say about her…except that her name is hard to pronounce.  So, I’ll give you an IMDB trivia fact about her name: Dushku was the only family with that surname in the United States of America in 1920 and were living in Massaschusetts. [Riveting, I know.]

#7 I’m kind of shocked that Adriana Lima isn’t up in the top 5.  I’d swap her out with Olivia really; but, I don’t work for Maxim so my opinion really doesn’t matter now, does it?

#8  Rihanna, well big thighs or not, you cannot deny her sexy sultriness.  She definitely belongs on this list, but it’s crazy to think a girl this hot could allow herself to be a part of an abusive relationship, right?

#9  Jordana Brewster, another top 10 hottie with hotness running in the blood, as her mother was also a model.  Bet you didn’t know that the gorgeous Jordana was a Yale graduate…graduated 2003.  Smart & beautiful–wow, what a deadly combination.    She’s best know for her roles in The Fast & the Furious and Fast & Furious [lame that they did that with the sequel], but I expect to see a lot more of her in the future too.  She’s just so cute!

#10 While I’ve never really loved Love-Hewitt, Jennifer is looking rather smokey in this pic.  I don’t know why, but she’s always just kind of annoyed me, so I probably wouldn’t have put her in the top 10.  I’m sure you guys have never been annoyed by this girl though.

Go pick up a Maxim magazine to see all 100 in their full glory!

Click here to see more red carpet photos.

Extract, the latest creative effort from “Beavis & Butt-Head” and “King of the Hill” creator Mike Judge, is not only a cleverly written and entertaining comedy but also further proof of my theory that whenever you have any kind of problem or conflict in any movie, somewhere there is a woman behind it all. Judge has a tendency to fill his shows with characters of astonishing stupidity, along with one or two intelligent ones who are constantly exasperated by the idiocy around them, so it’s fitting that “Arrested Development” star Jason Bateman should be cast in the lead role of Joel, playing essentially the same character that he played on that show.

Add to that the fact that he has a loveless and sexless marriage to a wife who has such a finely tuned mental clock that at the very minute of 8pm she ties on a pair of dreaded sweatpants, leaving Joel denied of sex for yet another evening. You remember this scene from the previews. Joel rushing home against the clock, explaining that once his wife pulls that drawstring tight those pants are on for the night and he gets nothing. I imagine we’re supposed to sympathize with a man stuck in such a frigid and uncommunicative marriage that he can’t have a simple conversation with her about their sex life and their mutual needs. Personally I’m completely unable to sympathize with people who suffer terribly from small problems with simple solutions, but no matter.

But check out this plot, it’s classic. A gold-digging hottie named Cindy (Mila Kunis) sees an article in the newspaper about a guy named Step who loses a testicle in a factory accident with the potential for a multi-million dollar lawsuit. Mesmerized by phrases like “multi-million dollar lawsuit” and “no testicles,” she immediately sets herself to the task of seeking him out and re-directing those funds to herself.

Once attaining a temp job at the factory, she flirts with Joel in an attempt to get close enough to him to get her hands on the one-nut employee’s contact information, but also giving Joel the impression that she likes him. When he finds himself unable to generate the conscience vacuum necessary to cheat on his wife, his bartender buddy Dean (Ben Affleck) suggests he hire a gigolo to sleep with his wife and thereby remove his guilt about an affair of his own.

The gigolo situation works out well, although right about at the same time that Joel realizes that Cindy isn’t at all interested in him, but is instead dating the greasy Step, despite the fact that he’s half the man he used to be. Joel now has to stop his wife’s continuing affair, which he paid to start and which has now taken on a life of its own, while at the same time stop this lawsuit from destroying his business right before he has a chance to sell it and retire young.

The movie is basically the throwing together of a lot of kooky characters and watching them thrash about among each other, and it works because they’re all unique and interesting characters, if not always very believable. Jason Bateman has become very very good at playing successful but highly overwhelmed characters, and my second favorite is J.K. Simmons (the newspaper boss from the Spiderman movies) as Brian, Joel’s second in command. This guy is an amazing comic actor, I could watch him do anything, although that god-awful tv series “Oz” was definitely an endurance test. Mila Kunis, who is leaps and bounds more attractive than Meg, the character that she voices on “Family Guy“, plays the manipulative hottie with such skill that it’s almost hard to believe she has never employed such tactics in real life. Ben Affleck also takes a fun turn in the movie, playing a dirtbag bartender and clearly having a blast with the role, and when actors are having fun playing their characters, it’s generally pretty hard not to have fun along with them.

Also joining them are a lot of actors that you will recognize by their voices, not necessarily including Gene Simmons who, you have to admit, is no fun at all to look at but has one of the funniest scenes in the whole movie. He’s also nice enough to keep his tongue in his mouth for the duration of the film, so that was nice of him. He fits his character well, too, but not quite as well as the hilarious David Koechner (The Goods), who fits entirely too comfortably into the role of the irritating neighbor that never goes away and simply can’t understand basic conversational clues that all mean “I have to go” or “please leave us alone.” The only real characterization problem in the movie is asking us to believe that Joel’s wife Suzie is really interested in this brain-dead gigolo. Kristen Wiig plays Suzie as far too beautiful and classy to be interested in Dustin Milligan’s Brad, who has roughly the IQ of a sun-dried tomato.

There is a scene in the middle of the movie where Joel accidentally gets really high, first on either Xanex or Ritalin or Special K, Dean can’t be quite sure which, and then on some pretty powerful weed, and it is as stupid and pointless and unamusing as it would be in any film, but the rest of the movie is a well-written sitcom pushed along by amusing performances and creative characters. It’s doesn’t have the same immediate relevance or ease of identity as Judge’s Office Space, his best film, but it’s the same style of average people suffering from average problems, if slightly exaggerated. Unfortunately though, I have a feeling that it’s not going to get the attention it deserves given that it’s competing at crowded cineplexes with heavyweights like G.I. Joe, District 9, Inglourious Basterds, Final Destination 4, and the amazing new animated film 9, so I hope you’ll take my advice and go check it out!

The Bean Meter

Stars flooded the red carpet at the Archlight Cinemas in Hollywood, Ca last night for the LA premiere of Mike Judge’s new film ‘Extract‘ featuring Mila Kunis, Jason Bateman, Kristen Wiig, and Ben Affleck.

The movie premiere’s attendees included Mila Kunis, Jason Bateman, Jessica Stroup, Dustin Milligan, Gene Simmons, Johnny Knoxville, Cheech Marin, Johnathan Schaech, and Doug Benson.

[Via TheInsider]

“In ‘Extract,‘ in theaters September 4, Jason plays Joel Reynold, a small business owner and blue-collar boss who employs a motley crew of losers, loners and outcasts in his culinary flavor extract factory. A success at business with an imminent buyout by a Fortune 500 company around the corner, Joel is a failure at home — and sexually frustrated to boot.

With the help of his barkeep buddy Dean (Affleck), Joel comes up with a convoluted scheme to make his wife Suzie (”SNL” star Kristen Wiig) cheat on him so he can pursue his beautiful new employee Cindy (Kunis) guilt-free — until a bottleneck on the assembly line creates a chain of hilarious, unfortunate events…”

Mila Kunis & Natalie Portman get down in dirty in their new movie Black Swan.

Script Shadow is reporting that the beautiful actresses have a pretty raunchy sex scene in the film.

[Via Script Shadow]:

Can I just tell you why none of my review matters? Can I just tell you why my review is absolutely pointless?

Because in this movie, Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis have sex.

Yeah. You read that right. And not just nice sweet innocent sex either. We’re talking ecstasy-induced hungry aggressive angry sex. Yeah so…this movie is already on the must-see list of 2010. But how good is it? Does the story that surrounds the sex disappoint or excel?

Black Swan is a psychological thriller directed by The Wrestler’s Darren Aranofsky, that focuses on a dancer with a New York ballet troupe, and the in-fighting and back-stabbing over the lead role in an upcoming production of Swan Lake.

Actress Mila Kunis is on the September 2009 issue of Women’s Health magazine. In her interview she discusses her relationship with Macaulay Culkin, other famous men that have entered her life, Hollywood, and being a klutz.

On her relationship with

Macaulay Culkin: “I don’t know if I met him at 27 if it would have been a different relationship. We grew up together. You find a steady rock in your life and that’s all you need. We have our ups and downs, but work through them.”

On working with James Franco in ‘Date Night’, out 2010: “He’s incredibly smart, but he’s not obnoxious smart, like ‘I’m going to tell you every SAT world I know just to prove it to you.’ He’s naturally smart. He reads.”

On her ‘That 70’s Show’ male costars: “[Ashton] Kutcher used to help me with my science homework. Wilmer [Valderrama] taught me to drive. Topher [Grace] talked about movies all the time. And Danny [Masterson] took me to my first club and bought me my first drink. He was my prom date too.”

On Hollywood: “[The culture here] isn’t based on anything other than ‘Who got a boob job?’ That’s what I feel L.A. is about. A lot of people here want to be everyone but themselves.”

On her hidden talent: “I really, really kick ass at drums on Rock Band. I’m just sayin’.”

On her fantasy dinner party: “It would be crazy. I’d invite Thomas Jefferson, [Leo} Tolstoy, Barack Obama, Lucille Ball, and maybe Stalin, only because there are certain people in history I just can’t wrap my head around. I’d be like, ‘Explain it to me. Pretend that I’m a 4-year-old and explain what made you do that crazy shit you did.’”

On being a klutz: “Let’s see. I had a snowboarding accident. I fell off a horse. I’ve had a concussion, a fractured rib….I walk into walls. I’m always bruised up.”

Ryan Seacrest announced during his morning show on 102.7 FM KIIS FM that Russell Brand will be hosting the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards!

The British comic-actor must have impressed MTV so much with his hosting skills from last year that they are giving him another go at it!

You may recognize Brand from his most recent roles in “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” with hotties Mila Kunis and Kristen Bell, and “Bedtime Stories”, with Adam Sandler.

Personally, I think Brand is hilarious!  I didn’t see last year’s VMA’s but from the looks of this interview with Craig Ferguson I’d say he is equipped for the job once more!

Olivia Wilde is Maxim’s #1 on their 2009 Hot 100 list. The June issue hits news stands this week.

WIlde who plays Thirteen on Fox’s hit medical show House, and Maxim’s editor writes:

We may not know a McDreamy from a McNugget, but when it comes to TV doctors, there is only one who makes our body temperature rise. The pulse-quickening internist played by Olivia Wilde on House, M.D. is named Thirteen (which we presume is out of 10) and has a terminal illness that causes her to dabble in drugs and casual sex. (That’s how we want to go!) But we were drooling over this N.Y.C. native long before she was injected into Fox’s hit medical drama….

Of taking the number one spot, Olivia says:

“I’m considered sexy even though I’m wearing a lab coat every day and seen as a doctor on TV. That really says something. Playing someone who is not defined by her looks and being considered hot, that really makes me feel good.”

Finally the girl has hit number one. I think she’s been hot since she played Mischa Barton’s girlfriend in the OC.

Check out the Top 10 in Maxim’s Hot 100: