Wednesday, September 16

• Jennifer's Body Reviews

  Despite a strong premise, Megan Fox, and a screenplay by Juno darling Diablo Cody, it appears Jennifer's Body is more than a little bit of a letdown.

  "Jennifer's Body represents a cornucopia of ideas, both comedy and horror, and the determination of the filmmakers to simply play the odds of getting more elements right than wrong instead of pursuing a purer vision makes it a mixed viewing experience, though often a very strange and funny one."

  — Ryan Stewart, Slant Magazine

  "An unoriginal and mostly unscary horror-comedy from, surprisingly, the pen of Diablo Cody."

  — Kirk Honeycutt, Hollywood Reporter

  "A premeditated cult classic..."

  — Nick Pinkerton, Village Voice

  "...this high school horror romp tackles its bad-girl-gone-really-bad premise with eye-rolling obviousness and, fatally, a near-total absence of real scares."

  — Justin Chang, Variety

  
  
  

  Jennifer's Body - Trailer

  Megan Fox stars - Releasing Sept. 18, 2009

  Posted 09/16/2009 by reelz

  Related: Megan Fox | Diablo Cody | Jennifer's Body

Tuesday, September 15

• New Clips from Jennifer's Body Talk up the Horror

  With Jennifer's Body headed into theaters this Friday, the studio has released a huge new batch of clips highlighting ... the dialogue. An unusual choice for a horror flick, but in this case not so surprising because the script was written by Diablo Cody, the pen behind Juno.

  The clips don't disappoint. We start off with a longer look at the botched sacrifice that made Jennifer (Megan Fox) the demon she is for the rest of the film. As the band explains to a terrified Jennifer exactly why they have to sacrifice her to the devil, it becomes painfully obvious that they are very much amateur Satanists. When you pick up your recipe for human sacrifice off the Internet, you really should expect things to go terribly wrong.

  The other clips mostly flesh out scenes that were teased in the trailers or in earlier clips. Again the emphasis is not so much on the gross-out horror, but on the often humorous interchanges between Jennifer and Needy (Amanda Seyfried), whose relationship is the real heart of the movie. See a few of our favorites below.

  
  

  Posted 09/15/2009 by Bill

  Related: Amanda Seyfried | Megan Fox | Diablo Cody | Jennifer's Body

Monday, September 7

• The Trojan Horse Inside Jennifer's Body

  Puzzling over the newfound box-office success of horror flicks with female audiences, the New York Times looks into what's happening with Jennifer's Body. With its theme of demon-assisted vengeance of a woman done wrong, the movie is making a fairly obvious play for the women in the audience. It allows women, as the paper puts it, to "take back the knife."

  Beyond that, the movie's creators tell the Times that they set out from the beginning to insert some feminist themes without sabotaging the movie's appeal for 15-year-old boys. By sticking to the tried-and-true genre formula of "screams, skin and death" — and having Megan Fox play Jennifer — an audience of young boys seems pretty much guaranteed. As for the feminists, writer Diablo Cody explains:

  The tricky thing is if you're going to subvert [the sex and violence], they have to be there.... We were constantly bobbing and weaving. [Director Karyn Kusama] and I talk about the film as a kind of Trojan horse. We wanted to package our beliefs in a way that's appealing to a mainstream audience.

  They were, she says, under a lot of pressure to give up the feminist subtext and just make a straight horror film, but ultimately her original script survived more or less intact, Trojan horse and all.

  
  

  Posted 09/07/2009 by Bill

  Related: Megan Fox | Karyn Kusama | Diablo Cody | Jennifer's Body

Thursday, August 27

• A Fear of Girls Gave Birth to Jennifer's Body

  In an interview with IESB, Diablo Cody explains that after penning the sweet, life-affirming Juno, she was ready for darker territory — and more than a bit of horror. In coming up with the script for Jennifer's Body, she was searching around for what really frightened her and found it surprisingly close to home.

  I wanted to write something that was about my fears, something that was a little edgy and eerie, but also funny. So I started thinking about what's scary to me, and I decided that girls are scary!

  The script didn't end up being about any specific girl she knew, but about taking some of the fear and loathing of everyday teenage life, and making it a bit more graphic — and humorous and entertaining.

  I think back-biting is a very accurate term, and in this case, it's literal. This movie is a commentary on girl-on-girl hatred, sexuality, the death of innocence, and also politics in the way the town responds to the tragedies [of the bloody deaths of several young men]. Any person who dares to respond in an unconventional way is branded a traitor. It's also just about fun — I wanted to write a really entertaining popcorn movie.

  But Cody wasn't just thinking about girls, Juno director and Jennifer's Body producer Jason Reitman interjected during the interview.

  At some point in the process I realized that every type of boy gets it in this film. The jock gets it. The sweet nerd gets it. The Goth kid gets it. This may just be Diablo's revenge on every type of boy she's ever met. If Juno is the film that speaks to her need for love, Jennifer's Body is the film that speaks to her need for revenge.

  For another look at how Cody (and Jennifer) satisfied that need, check out the gallery of new photos accompanying the interview.

  
  

  Posted 08/27/2009 by Bill

  Related: Jason Reitman | Diablo Cody | Juno | Jennifer's Body

Wednesday, August 26

• Jennifer's Body Featurette Throws Amanda Seyfried into the Limelight

  It's not like she needed a whole lot more exposure, but the demonically possessed Megan Fox is back in a new behind-the-scenes video from Jennifer's Body. As the movie's title character, she exhibits an insatiable (and rather messy) appetite for high school boys that ultimately sets her on a collision course with her far-less-glamorous best friend, "Needy" (Amanda Seyfried).

  Despite lacking evil superpowers, Needy turns not to be as defenseless as she first appears. The new bits of footage and commentary from the actresses and writer-exec producer Diablo Cody we get here actually end up shedding more light on Needy than on the more flashy (and toothsome) Jennifer. Plus, we get a first peek at the misbegotten sacrifice that sets everything in motion.

  
  

  Posted 08/26/2009 by reelz

  Related: Amanda Seyfried | Megan Fox | Diablo Cody | Jennifer's Body

Monday, July 27

• Megan Fox Says Jennifer's Body Will Spotlight Her Acting Ability

  

  Actress Megan Fox scoffed when reporters asked her about the possibility of playing a superhero in a live-action Wonder Woman movie, but apparently playing a zombie wasn't beneath her consideration. Perhaps that's because she found the role to be so unlike the decidedly un-sexy zombies to appear on screen in previous movies.

  In the still-in-production comedy-horror movie Jennifer's Body, Fox plays a cheerleader who returns from the dead as a zombie to feast on her former classmates. In a recent interview, Fox said that zombies can be "sexy" and that there was a lot of eroticism in the movie:

  Fox was criticized for being so critical of Transformers, the franchise that made her famous. She contrasts her new movie with Transformers, saying that she has more opportunities to act in Jennifer's Body:

  There are no robots to distract you from whatever performance I give, so if it's terrible you will know. But the character was so much fun. I felt I was being able to make fun of my own image.

  Jennifer's Body is currently in production, with Karyn Kusama (Æon Flux) directing from a script by Diablo Cody (Juno). If a zombie revenge movie seems a strange thing for the indie darling to write after the heartfelt tale of Juno MacGuff, think again. Cody told Entertainment Weekly:

  I was involved in a typical adolescent love triangle, and I found myself having incredibly violent thoughts about this other girl.

  
  
  

  Jennifer's Body - Trailer

  A popular high school girl is really an evil killer with supernatural powers

  Posted 07/27/2009 by BrentJS

  Related: Megan Fox | Karyn Kusama | Diablo Cody | Transformers | Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen | Jennifer's Body | Juno | Aeon Flux

Friday, July 24

• Jennifer's Body Aims For "Delightfully Exploitative" Feminism

  

  The first 15 minutes of Jennifer's Body got screened at Comic-Con, followed by a press conference with star Megan Fox, director Karyn Kusama, writer Diablo Cody, and producer Jason Reitman. Sadly, the footage has not made its way onto the net, but all sorts of interesting details about the plot and direction of the movie were revealed.

  From the red-band trailer, it was quite evident that however hot Jennifer might be on the outside, she was harboring a demon under her skin. Now we know why. It was a virgin sacrifice gone awry, not least because she didn't exactly meet the job requirements. After that, it's a not-so-straight-up combination of a woman-done-wrong revenge flick and sexy, bloody horror.

  Megan Fox seemed to particularly relish the contrast from her role in Transformers, and was dropping f-bombs left and right. About her new role she says:

  This movie gets so sexy! You better put on your f***in' sexy shoes for this one. Before every kill, there is a seduction because these boys have to get close enough to this dead girl for her to devour them. And I think I'm pretty sexy in it.

  With the male body count piling higher and higher, filmmakers insist that the movie has a feminist message. Of course, it manages to be, as they put it, "delightfully exploitative" along the way.

  
  

  Posted 07/24/2009 by Bill

  Related: Jason Reitman | Megan Fox | Karyn Kusama | Diablo Cody | Jennifer's Body

Wednesday, July 16

• Diablo Cody and Stephen Spielberg Team Up

  Diablo Cody, the stripper-turned-Oscar-winning-writer of Juno has been hired by DreamWorks to write an untitled comedy based on a concept by none other than Steven Spielberg.

  While the pairing might seem an unusual one, this is actually the second time Cody has run with one of Spielberg's concepts, the first being the series, The United States of Tara, currently under production for Showtime.

  Details on the script are completely hush-hush, but we'll let you know as soon as we hear anything.

  Source: Variety.

  
  

  Posted 07/16/2008 by reelz

  Related: Diablo Cody | Untitled Diablo Cody Comedy

Wednesday, December 5

• Exclusive Clip From Juno!

  Everyone is buzzing about the new movie Juno from director Jason Reitman (Thank You For Smoking) and with good reason - It's a great movie.

  Today we've got an exclusive clip from Juno hosted by it's star Ellen Page and stripper-turned-screenwriter Diablo Cody.

  Juno is out today and we highly recommend you check it out!

   

  
  
  

  Juno Clip

  Diablo Cody Ellen Page host an exclusive clip!

  Posted 12/05/2007 by reelz

  Related: Ellen Page | Jason Bateman | Jason Reitman | Diablo Cody | Juno