Boys Fight

It’s like a catfight, but with boys.

At last, we have a reason for why Alex Pettyfer wasn’t invited to strip again in Magic Mike XXL: Franchise star Channing Tatum don’t care for hime.

This, according to Pettyfer, who also recognizes it’s all partly his own fault, given his crap rep, his personal social anxieties (he, evidently, was quite...reserved, to put it kindly, on the set of the original Magic Mike), and his poor coping mechanisms to face certain issues in a level-headed manner (after a death in his family, the British actor failed to take care of a matter that kinda sorta became an issue with/for Tatum).

What...an unexpected mea culpa.

Will this turn the tide for Pettyfer and the state of his IMDb page?

Only time will tell.

Photo: HollywoodReporter.com.

The Guy’s Got a Hot Plan

No Divergent, no problem: Alex Pettyfer will do something else.

Like setting his next movie on fire – but on a decidedly much different way than he did in Magic Mike.

The British bad boy has signed on to play a sort of Romeo in Endless Love, the adaptation of the 1979 Scott Spencer book about two lovers forbidden to be with other.

Gabriella Wilde will play his Juliet, the daughter of a man who, for whatever reasons, forbids Pettyfer’s character from coming into their home. And here’s the kicker: In order to gain favor with the girl’s family, the guy decides to set fire to the house, hoping that by saving everyone he will be embraced with arms wide open.

Now, I didn’t see the 1981 version with Brooke Shields and some guy named Martin Hewitt, but I am willing to guess things go awry?

Right?

Photo: FanPop.com.

Four Guy

Alex Pettyfer has a Beyoncé complex: Kid’s all about the four.

Exhibit A: He starred in I Am Number Four.

Exhibit B: He might be playing a character named Four in the forthcoming Divergent.

I wonder if he is into fourways....

Anyway, Shailene Woodley is starring in the adaptation of the popular future dystopia-set novel about a girl dead-set on breaking from the authoritarian ways of a government that divides people based on human traits – as is, officially, Oscar winner Kate Winslet, btw. The British bad boy would play her male lead.

This could finally break him as the new Robert Pattinson.

Photo: Cosmopolitan.sg.

Snuff & Go Guy

I wouldn’t be surprised if confessed cheater Kristen Stewart pulled out of this one in favor of something less image-challenging....

Hollywood bad boy Alex Pettyfer (Magic Mike) is set to co-star with the fallen Twilight Saga star in Cali, a new Nick Cassavetes movie about two lovers who disappear after making a lot of money on a bogus snuff film.

I bet she doesn’t, though. That’s just not how K. Stew rolls.

Photo: MaleCelebNews.com.

Boys Gone Wild

I think I know the answer to this question, but are you ready for some Magic Mike?

’Cause I know you know that I have been for quite some time.

Well, it’s almost June 29, at last – but the Steven Soderbergh-directed eye feast (my, you have earned your spot in heaven, S2!) is opening in less than six hours. So the noise you hear is the sound of thousands of ladies (and their gays) like, rushing to the nearest theater double-horny and double-pronto for a midnight screening.

What awaits them there is...a dramedy that totally surprises about friendship and not-so-young love?

WTF!

Wait, hold up – you probably thought this movie was just gonna be about this charming guy Mike (played by the beyond-irresistible Channing Tatum, proving once and for all that he has arrived) and his studly strippin’ band of bros (Joe Manganiello and Matt Bomer among them) shakin’ their junk for the cameras, huh.

There’s plenty o’ that, but the powers that be have dared give the blockbuster more than titillation – they’ve come up with a whole story, based in part on Tatum’s pre-acting experiences as a real-life booty shaker.

The nerve.

Good thing, though, that, on its own, the story holds its own (light) weight. Looking past the bronzer that covers the façade of the main character and his nemesis, a cowboy-twangin’ old timer named Dallas played by Matthew McConaughey – oozing equal amounts of the smarmy and the sexy – the movie is a classically told story. It’s little guy trying to make good while bigger guy tries to keep him down (ish, on the sly) as he plots an equity-promising-never-delivering plan to head south to Miami, baby, and take the Magic City by storm.

Except both dudes spend a healthy chunk of their time on screen gyrating as, say, a homeboy (people, Tatum has the moves!) or a leather-clad, harness-wearing (H-O-T!) pseudo-svengali with a penchant for folky songs and saying “alright, alright, alright” like only a Texan macho man could, thankyouverymuch.

It’s obviously all good and dandy, except I get how the subject matter may give people pause. For audiences to see women strip is one thing, but for men to do the same, well...that’s like this new frontier. Mind you, there isn't any full frontal in Magic Mike (and if there had been it woulda been a bit of a cop-out). The closest we get to som’in’ akin to it involves Manganiello’s character and how he...uh...pumps himself up before going on stage, and the beyond-tease that he offers when he’s out there in as Big Dick Richie.

Serious, that’s his character’s name.

The A conflict comes from the fact that Mike, a part-time construction worker who’s the the star of Tampa’s Xquisite Male Dance Review at night, is pushing 30 and still chasing his dream of becoming a furniture designer. That’s rather commendable, except it’s evident that it’s also not gonna happen because the guy has shed his clothes for 1s – and the thrill of knowing and letting every lady who’s ever come out for a night on the town know he can have them – for longer than he should have now.

When he meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a clueless 19-year-old, he sees a chance to do something nice for someone who 1) kinda reminds him of himself at that age and 2) maybe, just perhaps, could be groomable into something of an heir apparent. As these things go, though, shy Adam emerges from his cocoon and becomes a butterfly that doesn’t know not to test his wings so fast and willy-nilly.

The “Kid,” as he’s nicknamed, gets in some unsavory trouble – y’ know, the sort that would come from hanging out in a strip joint, with characters whose personalities the script barely explores – right, Matt Bomer? (We hardly get to know his Ken, or Adam Rodriguez’s Tito, or Big Dick Richie, for that matter. They’re eye candy, and that’s about it.)

The B story is the rapport that develops between Mike and Adam’s older, has-it-together sister (newcomer Cody Horn). This young woman is kinda out of his league because she has it going on in a different way: she’s smart and employed and she’s smokin’ hot and she wishes Adam would live up to his potential.

Mike promises to look out after the Kid, but what he fails to realize is that now that he’s met her, he’s the one that needs taking care of, for he’s begun to change...to like, reprioritize, already.

Ultimately, what Magic Mike mines are the depths to which one is not only willing to plunge to have a good time and make an honest, albeit easy living, but to analyze how well they know themselves – and what kind of decisions they’ll make once an epiphany hits. (Toldja the movie would give ya something to ponder and not just recall when you get home and are taking a cold shower.)

For Mike, the choice isn’t 100 percent clear, but the reward is...and he may just have found it in a hopeless place he’s come to know as home but may not be where his heart is anymore.

My Rating ***

Photo: The Karpel Group.

Boys in Skivvies

Uh, WTF is Matthew McConaughey teaching Alex Pettyfer in this new still from Magic Mike?

Actually – WTF is he wearing?

I guess we will have to wait, patiently, until the Steven Soderbergh summer gift to cinema, also starring Channing Tatum, Matt Bomer, and Joe Manganiello, arrives in theaters on June 29.

Photo: The Karpel Group.

The Abs Have It...

The promotion for this months Magic Mike continues....

Check out the movies latest one-sheet, which features the teasetastic tag line “Work All Day. Work It All Night.” And a heckuva lot of abs.

Werk!

Photo: The Karpel Group.

Now This Is More Like It!

A new trailer for this summer’s Magic Mike has hit the Web, and – plot schmlot – this time you won’t to imagine what strippin’ shenanigans Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer, Joe Manganiello, and Matthew McConaughey will get into for your (viewing) pleasure.

So, without further ado, check it girls and boys who like H-O-T boys:

I wonder how many randy beeyotches are going to take June 29 off so they can go see Magic Mike on opening night....

I know I am considering it.

Did Somebody Call for a Little Magic?

The first trailer for this summer’s much-anticipated Magic Mike, so without further ado:

Yeah, lest anyone should think it, the powers that be (un)wisely decided to highlight the love story between the titular character (Channing Tatum, on whose pre-acting experiences the sure-to-be-a-hit dramedy is based), a successful stripper with dreams of becoming a furniture designer, and his reluctant object of affection (newcomer Cody Horn).

So don’t expect anymore than passing strippin’ glances of Alex Pettyfer, Joe Manganiello, and Matthew McConaughey. Or any whatsoever, from what I can tell, of that beautiful creature we know as Matt Bomer.

Studly Christmas Present Much?

Leave it to Channing Tatum and his Magic Mike co-stars to brighten up this Christmas.

Behold the first image from Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming must-see based on Tatum’s life in the strippin’ world back when he was 19 years old.

Pretty enticing, IMHO.

In addition to Tatum you’ll see plenty of Joe Manganiello, Alex Pettyfer, Matt McConaughey, and Matt Bomer, who, unfortunately, isn’t pictured here.

Merry Christmas, y’all!

Photo: Collider.com.

The (Un)limited

Time is of the essence in Andrew Niccol’s new thriller In Time, starring Justin Timberlake and that lucious creature known as Amanda Seyfried.

It is power, it is money, it is life. It. Is. Everything.

The futuristic movie tells the story of the lengths people go to in an era where people stop aging at 25. Not much of a reason is given for this marvel of bioengineering, really...something about crowd control, if memory serves.

The point is, once one turns 25, a neat Day-Glo green clocks lights up in people’s left arms, ticking down one year.

Timberlake, more leading-man-ish than ever, plays Will Salas, a 25-year-old going on 28 from the time-poor side of the tracks. (His 50-year-old mother is played by the beautiful Olivia Wilde.)

Will has always lived day to day ever since his time started running out, sprinting from one place to the other, making sure he has enough left on his clock to live to die another day.

One night at his local watering hole, he meets the morose Henry Hamilton, a handsome fellow played by Matt Bomer, who tells Will that even if he could live forever he may not want to. Time tends to catch up with the mind after a century.

Yeah, that’s about how much time Henry has on his clock (he is, in the way of In Time, rich), and after Will helps him get away from Fortis (Alex Pettyfer) and his gang of time thieves (much to the chagrin of the wealthy suicidal who had spent his evening flaunting his left arm around), Henry bequeaths his fortune to his golden-hearted Good Samaritan.

Henry carries out his plan to end it all on his own (he was pretty much asking Fortis to clean out his clock), timing out from the top of a bridge, leaving Will to appear as the prime suspect in his death.

A second passing (bye-bye, mama Salas) sends Will into an indignant quest to even out the scales. He heads to New Greenwhich, which is where people with a lot of time on their hands live (you know because everyone walks), and sets out to steal the time he feels they are taking away from everybody else.

He finds an unlikely ally in Sylvia Weis (Seyfried), the sheltered and unexcited daughter of one of the wealthiest men on Earth, banker Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), and, together, they go on an us-against-them crusade to even out the playing field.

Will and Sylvia put on their Robin Hood pants and go all Bonnie and Clyde (at first, she is his all-too-willing hostage, but after she saves him from a timekeeper...a cop, in essence, played by Cillian Murphy...she then becomes his more-than-a-sidekick accomplice).

In Time is an effective piece of entertainment, I think, that works because it subtly asks of its audience provocative questions without getting in the way of enjoyment.

I think that’s important, and I can’t imagine you will find any fault in that. Other than the hotties that star in it don’t spend a little more time showing us more than their arms as a way to tantalize not only one another but us, who, obviously, woulda preferred it if their secret time stamps had been placed somewhere sexier.

My Rating ***

Photo: 20th Century Fox.

Just for One Day

The new Andrew Niccol thriller In Time sure looks like it gave ’em som’in’ to talk about when it made its debut at Comic-Con earlier today – check out the trailer here to have your own look-see.

Starring Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried, the movie follows a group of people fighting for another day to live, in a world in which aging halts at 25 years old, and time has become the currency du jour.

Co-starring Alex Pettyfer, Matt Bomer, and Olivia Wilde, In Time is due out on Oct. 28.

Photo: HuffingtonPost.com.

Taking It Off

He may be a bad boy with a crap rep, but Alex Pettyfer is hot, and he’s going to give audiences what they like, alright, with his next project.

The Brit has signed on to join Channing Tatum in Magic Mike, the Steven Soderbergh-directed art-imitates-life movie based on Tatum’s past as a stripper.

Pettyfer will play a mentee to Tatum’s more experienced dancer.

And have a battle of the six-packs with the guy.

Hey, at least I hope so (I mean, check this side-by-side situation).

Photo: VMan.com.

The Year of Magical Thinking

The new high school-set take on the Beauty and the Beast story, Beastly, opens with up-and-comer Alex Pettyfer showing off his toned, hot bod, which is photographed to rival the majesticness of Manhattan’s Chrysler Building.

It is, by far, the most fantastical shot in the movie.

This Vanessa Hudgens-Pettyfer vehicle has the good fortune of being first on trend (yay, getting delayed from last summer paid off!), but the bad luck of being completely...unexciting. Hollywood has turned to the world of fairy tales once again for inspiration (projects for both the big and small screens are a-comin’) – and I can only trust its offerings will be superior to this one. Your move, Red Riding Hood.

Anyway, Pettyfer plays the beautiful and rich but full-of-himself-and-mean-about-it most popular guy in school, Kyle, a guy who gets off on mocking and humiliating those he deems “aggressively unattractive.” Granted, it’s not his fault that he’s such a tool: his superficial TV anchor-father (Peter Krause, from TV’s Parenthood) has raised him to value looks rather than what lies beneath. This is what passes for gravitas in Beastly.

His relentless taunting meets its match, though, when he crosses someone he shouldn’t have, his Goth-y classmate Kendra (Mary-Kate Olsen, rocking some dangerous-looking heels like nobody’s beeswax), whom he invites to the school’s environmental dance only to blow her off in public.

Kendra’s not the kind of girl to get her feeling hurt so easily...in fact, she’s a powerful witch, so she does what she would, which is to put a hex on Kyle to make him as aggressively unattractive on the outside as he is on the inside, transforming him into everything he despises.

Bald, scarred, and tattooed to within and inch of his life (but still tight), Kyle has one year to find someone who will love him as he is, which will be hard since he’s been such a d-bag and all.

It is the only way to break the curse, though (one of the niftiest tricks of his newfound ink is it tells time – a tree on his arm marks the passing of the season).

His task is made all that much more complicated after his father banishes to Brooklyn with a sympathetic housekeeper (Lisa Gay Hamilton) and blind tutor (a game Neil Patrick Harris – he and Olsen were the best part of this one, trust). Y’ know...so he can be more comfortable away from glaring eyes. As he first resists and resents his new mission in life, Kyle soon begins to see the world, and himself, a little differently, especially after he re-meets an old non-friend from school, Lindy (Hudgens).

A scholarship girl from the wrong side of the city who dreams of nothing more than to go on a trip to Machu Picchu (a trip for which she’s been saving for like, forever), Lindy is the kind beauty who will save terrible self, of course, but first, this beast has to get her in his castle, which he does when he chances upon her drug addict-dad killing a threatening dealer in defense of his princess.

Seizing the opportunity, Kyle promises the addict freedom and safety for his daughter, and sets out to woo her, not only because he wants her to fall for him so the spell goes poof but because he genuinely likes her.

The fact that Beastly was set against a high school background made it seem smarter than it actually is, because to cater to today’s youth you gotta be the sharpest knife out there, but, ultimately, it proved to be as dull as most of its acting (Alex Pettyfer and even you, Vanessa Hudgens, I will give you a pass with the hope that you knew this could only turn out to be a wooden snoozefest) and its execution.

Happily ever after this did not make, so don’t bother.

My Rating *1/2

Photo: mmm-mag.com.

Tale As Old As Time...But Hotter

A modern-day take on Beauty and the Beast is coming, and the best part is it stars It Boy of 2011 Alex Pettyfer.

Just weeks after he breaks through in I Am Number Four next month, the up-and-coming Brit will co-star opposite Vanessa Hudgens in the released-at-last Beastly.

Pettyfer plays Kyle, a spoiled New York brat cursed with bad looks in order to appreciate true beauty by way of finding honest-to-the-goodness-within love.

Mary-Kate Olsen and Neil Patrick Harris co-star in the movie opening on March 18.

Photo: ChartMovieInfo.com.

The Aliens Are Coming

Much has been done about this book I Am Number Four, which Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg are bringing to the big screen next winter.

The teaser for the movie was released this week, and I gotta say it looks pretty good:



I Am Number Four stars the studly newcomer Alex Pettyfer, Timothy Olyphant (in for The A-Team’s Sharlto Copley, who had to drop out due to scheduling conflicts with the promotion of that not the blockbuster it should have been), Dianna Agron (TV’s Glee), and Kevin Durand (TV’s Lost).

The movie is due out on Feb. 18.