Notizie

The film might not hit theaters until next year, but casting announcements and exclusive interviews got fans worked up for March release.

By Kara Warner

Jennifer Lawrence in "The Hunger Games"

Photo: Murray Close

For the millions of fans who have been eagerly awaiting a film adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-seller "The Hunger Games," 2011 gave them even more to be eager about as details trickled out about the movie, which is due in March.

We at MTV News have been as caught up in the frenzy as everyone else. And along the way, we've been able to speak with the major players involved in the "Games," gleaning the juiciest details from the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson.

Back in January, before casting was solidified, Hemsworth told MTV News he'd read the script and that he could actually see himself in the role of Peeta. After...

The film might not hit theaters until next year, but casting announcements and exclusive interviews got fans worked up for March release.

By Kara Warner

Jennifer Lawrence in "The Hunger Games"

Photo: Murray Close

For the millions of fans who have been eagerly awaiting a film adaptation of Suzanne Collins' best-seller "The Hunger Games," 2011 gave them even more to be eager about as details trickled out about the movie, which is due in March.

We at MTV News have been as caught up in the frenzy as everyone else. And along the way, we've been able to speak with the major players involved in the "Games," gleaning the juiciest details from the likes of Jennifer Lawrence, Liam Hemsworth and Josh Hutcherson.

Back in January, before casting was solidified, Hemsworth told MTV News he'd read the script and that he could actually see himself in the role of Peeta. After...

'It's almost impossible to describe, it's so unusual,' he tells MTV News.

By Kara Warner with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Woody Harrelson

Photo: MTV News

For all our fellow "Hunger Games" fans out there, the wait for the film's March 23 release date is both highly anticipated and a bit painful. Lucky for us, MTV News has encountered a few of the film's principal players over the course of the past few months, like Jennifer Lawrence and director Gary Ross, who have helped tease a few key details to make the wait for the film seem slightly shorter.

Now, we are very happy to share another special cast encounter: our recent chat with Woody Harrelson, a.k.a. Haymitch Abernathy, who revealed the secrets of his character's 'do and a few teases about the look of the film, as well as how much fun he had with Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and his other co-stars.

'It's almost impossible to describe, it's so unusual,' he tells MTV News.

By Kara Warner with reporting by Josh Horowitz

Woody Harrelson

Photo: MTV News

For all our fellow "Hunger Games" fans out there, the wait for the film's March 23 release date is both highly anticipated and a bit painful. Lucky for us, MTV News has encountered a few of the film's principal players over the course of the past few months, like Jennifer Lawrence and director Gary Ross, who have helped tease a few key details to make the wait for the film seem slightly shorter.

Now, we are very happy to share another special cast encounter: our recent chat with Woody Harrelson, a.k.a. Haymitch Abernathy, who revealed the secrets of his character's 'do and a few teases about the look of the film, as well as how much fun he had with Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson and his other co-stars.

Brett Harrelson -- who appeared with his brother Woody in " The People Vs. Larry Flynt " -- says he once saw John Wayne Bobbitt 's famous reattached wang In Person ... at an Xmas party!!! Brett gave us the long and short of it yesterday in L.A. -- where he said he was at a party a while back that was thrown by Hustler honcho Larry Flint ... and Bobbitt decided to swing by. Brett says a...

NEW YORK -- Making a long-overdue return to filmmaking, director Milos Forman scores a triumph with this bizarre biopic. One of the funniest and most provocative films of the year, "The People vs. Larry Flynt" harks back to "Lenny" in its depiction of an outrageous defender of the First Amendment battling the forces of censorship and his own self-destructiveness.

The difference is that Flynt ultimately wins in the end, and his story, while filled with tragic elements, is a whole lot funnier. Here is a big studio film that recalls the 1970s, both in its subject matter and in its willingness to take risks. After its world premiere at the New York Film Festival, it will be released this fall by Columbia. No doubt, it will reap scads of publicity.

Flynt, the outrageous publisher of one of the most reviled porno publications in history, Hustler magazine, is an unlikely hero for a movie, but screenwriters Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski, who mined similarly strange territory in "Ed Wood", have done a superb job in telling his story without resorting to glorification or ridicule. Although necessarily episodic in its storytelling, the screenplay, which mostly stays true to the facts, cannily uses as its main focus the legal battle between Flynt and the Rev. Jerry Falwell that resulted in a victory for the publisher in the Supreme Court.

Woody Harrelson does his best screen work to date in the central role, which takes advantage of the actor's natural tendency for comic dangerousness. He is supported by an extremely interesting cast, including Courtney Love, who fairly burns up the screen as Flynt's stripper wife Althea; Edward Norton, excellent as Flynt's long-suffering attorney; James Cromwell as financier Charles Keating; and even real-life Democratic political consultant James Carville as prosecutor Simon Leis.

Brett Harrelson, Woody's brother, does an effective job playing Flynt's brother Larry, and Donna Hanover (the wife of New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani) shows up as Ruth Carter Stapleton, Jimmy Carter's evangelist sister. Among those playing Flynt's cronies are several actors specializing in weirdness, including Crispin Glover and Vincent Schiavelli. Flynt himself plays a cameo, as the judge who sentenced him to 25 years.

The picture details Flynt's life, from his beginnings as a small-time strip-club owner with a propensity for bedding his employees to his starting up Hustler as a working man's alternative to the reigning sex magazine of the time, Playboy. This results in a series of legal and courtroom battles, many of which are played for laughs: Reacting to the judge's decision to lock him up, Flynt says incredulously, "Twenty-five years? All I'm guilty of is bad taste!"

The picture naturally takes a darker tone after Flynt is shot and rendered paralyzed below the waist by a would-be assassin's bullet. (The shooter was never captured.) He sinks into a morass of pain, drug addiction and ever-worsening legal and financial problems. In his later years, his mental state worsens and his increasingly bizarre behavior lands him in a mental hospital.

He bounces back to successfully fight the lawsuit filed against him by Falwell, who sued because of a liquor ad parody describing him as having had sex with his mother.

The film's mostly sympathetic tone doesn't ignore the fact that both Flynt and his magazine could be described as little better than sleazy, nor does it shy away from depicting his wanton and hedonistic lifestyle. But it also convincingly makes the argument that, whatever one may think of this controversial figure, he was an important if unlikely hero in the battle for freedom of speech.

The film also works as a compelling romance, detailing Larry and Althea's highly unconventional but, as depicted here, loving (if not monogamous) relationship. Harrelson and Love show great chemistry -- both of them radiate outrageousness -- and the latter, in her biggest screen role yet, is good enough to merit serious Oscar consideration.

In fact, if the Academy members can handle the controversial material, the film as a whole should score big with nominations. Forman's direction handles the challenging and difficult material with skill and ease, beautifully blending the tragic with the farcical. And the production design and costumes re-create the glory days of the 1970s in all their tacky splendor.

THE PEOPLE VS. LARRY FLYNT

A Columbia Pictures release

Columbia Pictures, Phoenix Pictures, Ixtlan Prods.

Director:Milos Forman

Producers:Oliver Stone, Janet Yang, Michael Hausman

Screenplay:Scott Alexander, Larry Karaszewski

Photography:Philippe Rousselot

Editor:Christopher Tellefsen

Production designer:Patrizia Von Brandenstein

Color/stereo

Cast:

Larry Flynt:Woody Harrelson

Althea Leasure Flynt:Courtney Love

Alan Isaacman:Edward Norton

Ruth Carter Stapleton:Donna Hanover

Jimmy Flynt:Brett Harrelson

Rev. Jerry Falwell:Richard Paul

Chester:Vincent Schiavelli

Arlo:Crispin Glover

Milo:Miles Chapin

Charles Keating:James Cromwell

Simon Leis:James Carville

Running time -- 129 minutes

MPAA rating: R...