MMA Man

So Ryan Gosling has taken up mixed martial arts, evidently.

Why can’t he like, take, oh, I don’t know.... Me!

Ah, wishful thinking is a beautiful thing, huh,

Photo: People.com.

2011: The Year in Review

Alright, alright – I wouldn’t be Movie frakkin’ Martin if I didn’t share with ya what I liked most (and disliked most) about the year that’s about to end, am I right or am I right?

So, just like last year, I’ll start with my Top 10 films of the year and then pepper in some other goodies, OKRRR?

Enjoy, and remember to bookmark and share the s--- out of this blog, and to follow me on the Twitter (look for @moviemartin).

Happy 2012!

10 Best Films of the Year (in alphabetical order):

The Artist

Beginners

Bridesmaids

Crazy, Stupid, Love

Drive

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2

The Help

Like Crazy

Melancholia

Warrior

Honorable Mention: The Adjustment Bureau

Best Animated Film: The Adventures of Tintin

Best Directors: David Fincher (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Michel Hazanavicius (The Artist), Mike Mills (Beginners), Lars von Trier (Melancholia), Nicolas Winding Refn (Drive)

Best Body: Shame’s Michael Fassbender

Best, Sexiest Chemistry: Matt Damon and Emily Blunt in The Adjustment Bureau

Best Comeback: The Muppets

Best Fight: Kristen Wiig and that little c--- (her words) in Bridesmaids

Best Sidekicks: Dogs (Uggie in The Artist, Cosmo in Beginners, Snowy in The Adventures of Tintin)

Best Supporting Actors: Kenneth Branagh (My Week with Marilyn), Albert Brooks (Drive), Christopher Plummer (Beginners), Nick Nolte (Warrior), Patton Oswalt (Young Adult)

Can’t Wait to See More of – Female: Paula Patton, from Jumping the Broom and Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol

Can’t Wait to See More of – Male: Eddie Redmayne, from My Week with Marilyn

Should’ve Had a Better Year: Ryan Reynolds

Best Use of Angela Bassett: Jumping the Broom

Worst Use of Angela Bassett: Green Lantern

Best Supporting Actresses: Bérénice Bejo (The Artist), Jessica Chastain (The Help), Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids), Carey Mulligan (Shame), Octavia Spencer (The Help)

Breakthrough Performance – Female: Jessica Chastain (The Debt, The Help)

Breakthrough Performance – Male: Joel Edgerton (Warrior)

Best Hair: Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid Love

Best Look (tie): Ryan Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love and Rooney Mara in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Best, Coolest Name: Ryan Gosling’s in Crazy, Stupid, Love (say it, everyone: Jacob Palmer)

Most Badass: Saoirse Ronan in Hanna

Worst Hair (tie): Chris Hemsworth in Thor and Emma Stone in The Help

Worst Sequel: The Hangover Part II

Best Actors: Jean Dujardin (The Artist), Michael Fassbender (Shame), Ryan Gosling (Drive), Ewan McGregor (Beginners), Anton Yelchin (Like Crazy)

Best Actresses: Viola Davis (The Help), Kirsten Dunst (Melancholia), Felicity Jones (Like Crazy), Charlize Theron (Young Adult), Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn)

Photos: Warner Bros. (Crazy, Stupid, Love); Paramount Pictures (Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol); Walt Disney Pictures (The Help); Focus Features (Beginners).

Working Stylist

Brad Goreski is doing it on his own.

Work!

Rachel Zoe’s former right-hand man-turned-breakout-star/wet dream of many a gay will serve as executive brand stylist at Kate Spade.

The news comes on the eve of the debut on Bravo of Goreski’s own reality show, It’s a Brad, Brad World, on Jan. 2.

Photo: NYMag.com.

The Song of 2011

This is quite probably the easiest choice I’ve had to make all year: Adele’s “Someone Like You” is the song of the 2011.

Yeah, it’s reaching an uncomfortable level of ubiquity (it’s been made fun of on SNL, to great effect – GTS), but Adele’s beautiful, career-landmark ballad deserves to be heard time and time again, if anything because she felt it and she wrote it and she shared it. It’s really possibly the rawest of her songs in terms of emotion, and if you have a pulse and two wits about ya you know what I mean and why I chose it (it does what music is supposed to do...relate and move listeners while allowing them to sing along, so to borrow a phrase: winning!).

Oof, and that gorgeous video.... Well, see for yourself:

Easy choice, right?

So What Is This About Again?

I am hearting the vintage feel of the poster for Lee Daniels’ The Paperboy, but I’m also a bit confused by the look of it.

Front and center are Zac Efron and Nicole Kidman, riding a classic car, with Kidman shooting Efron a slightly flirting look and with the young star looking all muscle-y.

Is she taking him back to her place in Courgarville as her cuckold husband (Matthew McConaughey) feels all left and whatnot in the background?

And what is up with John Cusack and that look? Is he the assassin McConaughey sends after Efron and Kidman?

And why is this called The Paperboy?

Well, that’s because the movie is adapted from the Pete Dexter novel about a reporter and his brother and their attempt to get an innocent man off death row in the ’60s.

So none of my theories hold water.

Oh, well...I still wanna see this one. Soon.

Photo: EW.com.

Scream All You Want...

We’ve seen the poster, and now it’s time for a trailer – and for us to definitely go right ahead and call Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (which stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, and Charlize Theron) a sort of Alien prequel, alright.

Check it out:

Time to brush up on the original....

R.I.P. Cheetah

Well, he lived a good life and he made many people smile, but now, sadly, he’s gone: Cheetah, the chimp from the 1930s Tarzan movies starring Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O’Sullivan, has died at age 80.

The Hollywood legend passed away on Christmas Eve after suffering kidney failure the week before.

Cheetah had been living in Florida, where he’d retired in the ’60s.

Photo: CNN.com.

Update: Hold the banana: This may not have been the Cheetah, after all.

Operative at Thought

For months now you’ve probably been wondering just what’s up with Ben Affleck’s hair, right?

Well, here’s your answer.

The actor-cum-accomplished director has been working on Argo, a political thriller about the 1979 Iran hostage crisis starring him.

This is what he will look like in the movie opening next September.

Seems like bf will get himself in some hair situations, huh. (Puns!)

Photo: EW.com.

Da One Sounds Good

A funny thing happened on my way to falling for Rihanna’s “You Da One” – I didn’t...not immediately, anyway.

But now I’m head over flip-flops.

Oof, and the video that the singer has put out for it is really cute, too. Artsy and experimental and, of course, sexy. I can’t get enough.

Which is, I think, how she likes it.

So gimme, RiRi.

Photo: GossipOnThis.com.

Keep the Faith, Mars-ians!

Kristen Bell wants us to remain hopeful a movie based on her dearly departed show Veronica Mars will happen some day.

Or at least such a project isn’t off the table for her.

“We are still working on it,” she recently said. “We are – we, like the few people involved that have it in our hearts [including show creator Rob Thomas] are still assessing all of our options and game-planning it.”

Bell says that the creative team still known on the powers that be’s door every so often, championing the movie, but that money may be getting in the way, as it would.

“The reality is we need a few million dollars to do it and that’s a lot of money. It’s difficult to convince a studio to take a risk when you’re proposing to them to make a movie of a television show that’s been off the air for four years.”

We may need to start a fund....

Photo: Jesda.com.