CMT Blog: Movies

Gwyneth Paltrow sang Nashville's praises while she was in town filming a movie, Country Strong, earlier this year. Now she's singing a new tune -- and it's coming to country radio. Paltrow recorded "Country Strong" for her lead role as Kelly Canter, a faded country star with a drug problem and an eye on a comeback. If you're curious to hear it, the single is streaming on a brand new website, KellyCanter.com. Paltrow appears to be a pretty decent singer, allowing herself to wail a bit toward the end, while the message of resilience should fit in neatly to the country format. The movie, which also stars Tim McGraw as her husband and manager, will be released nationally on Dec. 22.

Photo credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Michael Connelly is a brilliant writer. His books are the ones that make me lose sleep night after night because I literally cannot put them down. So now that his 2005 bestseller, The Lincoln Lawyer, is being made into a movie with Trace Adkins in a small role, I will be first in line at the theater when it opens. (Not until sometime in 2011, sadly.) The story is about a criminal defense attorney who uses the backseat of his Lincoln Town Car as his Los Angeles office to represent some very heavy hitters and bad guys. And I remember from the book that there was a Beverly Hills realtor-by-day and playboy-by-night who was arrested for attacking a woman. Matthew McConaughey plays the lawyer Mickey Haller, while Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe and John Leguizamo are in the cast, too. Adkins has taken the role of the leader in a biker gang. If it's half as exciting as Blood Work, the other Connelly novel that Clint Eastwood made into a film in 2002, I think Adkins chose well when he decided to say yes to this script.

Steel Magnolia put on musical halos and wings, Colt Ford puts in vampire contact lenses and the JaneDear Girls put on chic outfits in the latest round of new videos watched by the CMT New Music Video Evaluation Team.

Artist: The JaneDear Girls
Video: "Wildflower"
Director: Robert Deaton

Susie Brown and Danielle Leverett left their home states -- Brown's Utah and Leverett's Texas -- to try solo careers in Nashville. They met in a club, started writing together, and eventually the JaneDear Girls were born. This is their debut single and video.

Panelists' comments: "They make good TV." "The song sounds a little fluffy." "That video looks like nothing else on right now."

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Even though Taylor Lautner dated Taylor Swift for five minutes, that doesn't mean his character from the Twilight movies has won over many country stars. In the ongoing rivalry between the movie's Edward (vampire) and Jacob (werewolf), Julianne Hough picks Edward. So does Gloriana's Cheyenne Kimball. And Laura Bell Bundy does, too. She says, "I'm Team Edward for sure. I think he's a stunning man, and I like to watch his face." Even Colt Ford seems to be on Edward's side. Only Martina McBride wavers between the two. "Well, Edward's really cute, but I think he's very romantic, but I think probably Jacob is a healthier relationship. He seems to care. He's not as obsessive. It's a little more well-rounded," she told OK! Magazine.

Photo courtesy of Summit Entertainment

In case you were wondering, Colt Ford is firmly "Team Edward." In his video for "Chicken & Biscuits" (featuring vocals from James Otto), the plus-size country rapper parodies the Twilight series to hilarious effect. There's a werewolf group and a vampire group -- and a "bad" vampire group -- along with a clueless teenage girl and a deep fryer. You see, Ford is like many sparkly vampires in that he gets a hunger on a very regular basis. A hunger for fried chicken, that is. Check out his "impossible speed and strength" and some behind-the-scenes photos from the video shoot.

Taylor Swift has dabbled in acting with that CSI episode and that little part in Valentine's Day, but she recently told MTV News that was it for her Hollywood alter ego. For a while, anyway. "I'm not making movies right now. I'm making music," she said. "That's always been my number-one love." She added that it was cool and really fun to do those acting projects, but she made it sound like her music videos are enough of a creative outlet for that acting bug. "I feel like I get to do these little mini-movies when I make music videos, so that kind of fulfills that little need or desire," she said. Tim McGraw and Reba McEntire have both found a way to make great music and do some quality acting, but what's right for one artist isn't always right for another. So if music is Swift's number-one love, then I'm glad she's staying true to that.

Photo credit: Jason Merritt/Getty Images

Helen Reddy? Seriously? That's what I thought when I saw Sex and the City 2 this weekend. There's a big splashy karaoke number in a nightclub scene in Abu Dhabi, where Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte have gone for a lavish girls-week-out, and they all take the stage and sing "I Am Woman," Reddy's 1972 empowering feminist anthem. But I can think of a few country songs that would've made just as much of a statement. Like Martina McBride's "This One's for the Girls." It may not be a legendary tune but it's definitely way more current and way more fitting for these girlfriends who have grown up together from living in little apartments just trying to get by, up through tossing pennies into the Fountain of Youth.

Photo credit: Gareth Carrermole/Getty Images

The Gulf of Mexico is filling up with oil, this country is still bogged down in two wars, the nation's economy is in a tangle, and the web this morning is abuzz about -- the fact that a 77-year-old man cut his hair!

Yessir, it's a fact. Willie Nelson, the venerable country music patriarch, trimmed his -- as the Philadelphia Inquirer described it, "lengthy, reddish pigtails" -- hair. It's not as if it's the first time. This does happen more often than you think. But still. ... As Willie said on his website, this is "the haircut heard around the world." And as USA Today's headline proclaims, "What do you think of Willie Nelson's new haircut?"

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I was a little on the fence about catching a Saturday (April 17) screening of the new movie Provinces of Night at the Nashville Film Festival. But with a cast that includes Kris Kristofferson, Dwight Yoakam, Val Kilmer and Hilary Duff and music directed by T Bone Burnett, I figured it was worth a shot. Man, am I glad I went. The story centers around the Bloodworth family in the backwoods of Middle Tennessee and the maelstrom that gets unleashed when Kristofferson, the absent patriarch, returns after 40 years on the run. He's a hitchhiking country singer with one album to his credit but not much else for all his wandering. A few different themes are explored after his return, including the youngest member of the family's coming of age, the deadly secret that kept the old man away and the self-destructive nature of his sons, played by Yoakam, Kilmer and W. Earl Brown.

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I'm heading to Las Vegas in a few hours for the ACM Awards, and to get myself pumped up, I popped in my Viva Las Vegas DVD. Originally released in 1963, this cute film stars Elvis Presley (who looks like a million bucks) in the role of a race car driver named Lucky. However, his co-stars give him a run for his money. Ann-Margret is a feisty redhead who teaches swimming lessons at the resort. And the neon-bright opening shots of downtown Las Vegas are a marvel. Several of the race scenes are shot right on Fremont Street, too - where Lady Antebellum and Miranda Lambert are playing free shows this weekend. If you've never seen Viva Las Vegas, I recommend it for the outrageous colors, the indisputable spark between Elvis and Ann-Margret -- and definitely the peppy music. And don't leave your seat when the big race starts. I don't know if they ran out of money or what, but it's one of the most abrupt movie endings I've ever seen.