Who's Hotter, Brad Pitt or Johnny Depp? Alex Pettyfer Decides

Walking into Alex Pettyfer's hotel suite high above the stars on the Walk of Fame, the Hollywood sign glistening in the sun behind him, you can't help but fall a little bit in love. Not with the young heartthrob who is being heralded as the next Robert Pattison with this week's release of "I am Number Four," but with Oliver, his adorable seal-grey puppy recently adopted from the rescue organization, Barks ‘n’ Bitches.

"I got him two weeks ago," Pettyfer says in the British accent he suppressed while filming his starring role as John Smith, one of nine aliens infants sent to hide on Earth after their home planet is destroyed. Assigned a guardian and an order, they can only be killed in the sequence of their numbers. Following the murders of Numbers One, Two, and Three, Number Four (Pettyfer), is living on high alert in Paradise, Ohio, disguised as an American high school student, when he falls in love (with his real-life sweetheart, "Glee"'s Dianna Agron) and realizes he has something to fight for.

Sporting a simple band on his wedding ring finger—which went uncommented on despite rumors he and Agron were engaged (rumors have since surfaced that they've split)—Pettyfer told me that he appreciates comparisons to tween phenomenons like Pattison and "Twilight," but felt the buzz was premature.

"I hope we have the success of 'Twilight' by half or even a quarter," the 20-year-old began. "Obviously, you've got that central story of falling in love with something different and that's comparable between 'Twilight' and 'I am Number Four,' but I don't think we're anything like them. We're a lot less serious. I think people are looking for the next 'Harry Potter' or 'Twilight' as they're coming to an end, and hopefully we can fill that gap."

With Michael Bay, "the king of action" according to Pettyfer, and Steven Spielberg, "the godfather of film," producing, "…Number Four" is expected to easily inherit that mantle.

Since the film is all about gaining powers, I wondered what innate human ability Pettyfer would give up if he had to.

"Taste," he replied easily. "I don't really enjoy food. I'm not a big eater. I only eat certain things, [like] In 'n' Out Burger, pasta, pizza. I think sight is the most important."

Considering the media maelstrom surrounding the film, replete with screaming, crying fans at Hot Topic signings, I wondering if losing his anonymity was difficult.

"I haven't been witness to it; I've been holed up in hotel rooms [promoting the movie] for the last five weeks. Maybe in five weeks, after the film comes out, it will be."

Pettyfer, who says he'd like to emulate the career of Gary Oldman, "an actor who challenged himself and took the bar to a whole new level," has the added blessing/curse of being Tigerbeat-friendly. A former model, I asked if being too handsome was ever a detractor from an actor who wanted to follow an Oldman-esque path.

"I don't see myself as attractive or ugly. I think attraction is in the eye of the beholder," Pettyfer said (as only a handsome man could). "If I put Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt up, fifty percent of the women would go for Brad Pitt and fifty percent would say Johnny Depp."

So who would Pettyfer choose? "Johnny Depp! All the way," he smiled.

"Justified" Does Elmore Leonard Proud

For every Elmore Leonard adaptation which has soared ("Get Shorty," "Out of Sight"), there's one that sank like the Titanic ("Be Cool," "Karen Sisco"). FX's new series, "Justified," based on Leonard's character U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, who was featured in two books and one short story, falls triumphantly in the former category, making this noir western one of the most promising new hours TV has to offer.

Timothy Olyphant stars as Givens, a Marshal whose particular brand of justice gets him reassigned to the hometown in rural Kentucky he loathes. While there are undeniable shades of his "Deadwood" character, Marshall Seth Bullock, Olyphant's Givens commands the screen with a seething swagger and quiet authority. Place your bets, kids, Olyphant is our early favorite for both an Emmy and a Golden Globe nod.

Each yin must have a yang and Givens finds his in Boyd Crowder, an old coal mining buddy. Played by Walter Goggins, formerly of another exceptional hour of television courtesy of FX, "The Shield," Crowder is the man Givens might have been if he'd gone Vader instead of Luke.

Speaking proudly of the show's dedication to uphold the excellence of Leonard's writing, Goggins explained the "WWED" (What Would Elmore Do?) bracelets show creator Graham Yost gave his writing staff became a sentiment that permeated the set. "I think [audiences] will really appreciate the humor, the writing and the stylistic kind of dialogue ongoing interpretation of Elmore Leonard…that kind of banter," Goggins says of the show which he describes as "the Coen Brothers meets 'The Shield.'"

If that doesn't inspire you to set your DVR, what will?

"Justified" premieres tonight, March 16, 10pm on FX.

"The Crazies" is Insanely Fun

Thanks to everyone's favorite recession, movie studios don't do it up the way they used to. The days of over-the-top theme screenings, filled with goody bags and stars, are as dead as disco. But last night, Overture pulled out all the stops to debut "The Crazies" with one of the best events in recent memory.

Arriving in the light mist of a chilly February night, we were greeted by flashlights shining in our face while machine gun-toting soldiers in fatigues and gas masks barked orders. Ushered onto a school bus with blacked out windows, we were taken on a wild goose chase of a ride, only to be dumped out close to where we began and forced to walk a gauntlet of bloodied patients, twitching dead bodies and more screaming soldiers. Imagine a ride at Disneyland, but with spittle spewing drill sergeants and the threat of death around every corner. It was awesome.

Once inside the theater, an announcement promised us we were all "safe—afe—afe—afe." On the heels of the echoes, commandos burst in shouting "Security Breach!," grabbed one "infected" audience member from his seat, his girlfriend shrieking in panic, as they were both dragged off, legs flailing. The entire theater burst into applause. But the fun was just getting started.
"The Crazies," a remake of the 1973 George A. Romero original, walks a tight line between B-movie fun and jump-in-your-seat thrills, taking the audience on a ride that has you laughing, cheering and hiding, all in one deliriously exhilarating breath.

Director Breck Eisner (son of Michael), redeeming himself from the epic fail of "Sahara," begins with a picture of the easy life in Ogden Marsh, a hayseed of a town where high school baseball games and gossip are the big news. That is, until the town drunk walks onto the baseball field with a shotgun in the middle of a game, forcing Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant, turning in another great genre performance on the heels of last year's "The Perfect Getaway") to shoot him dead.

Before you can say "MadCowSwineFluAnthrax," the sleepy town's morgue is stacked with bodies as an unnamed malady spreads. Soon the entire town is rounded up under military quarantine, leaving Dutton, his doctor wife Judy (the always impressive Radha Mitchell), side-kick deputy Russell (a noteworthy and memorable Joe Anderson) and Judy's assistant Becca (in-training It Girl Danielle Panabaker) in a fight for their lives against trigger happy U.S. soldiers and townspeople who have turned into Crazies.

The truth is, this movie could have been just another schlocky genre piece. But thanks to Eisner's ability to turn everything from an unmanned bone saw to a passing helicopter into a weapon of mass destruction, and paired with exceptional performances, anchored by Olyphant's charisma and pathos, it becomes a cathartic journey through terror that, for a glorious 101 minutes, has you forgetting about the real scariness that exists in the world. Even though you may never trust the drive-thru car wash again, what's really insane is just how much fun "The Crazies" is.