Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Guy Has Feelings and Other Things Going, Too

Kellan Lutz doesn’t want to be objectified forever.

For now, he says, it’s OK (ish), but he would rather we know he’s got more to offer the world than the sight of beyond-ripped abs.

“By no means do I want to be a piece of meat for the rest of my career,” the Twilight Saga player
said. “It’s funny when you get asked to do a talk show, and then they follow it up with requesting you take your shirt off.”

The actor, who soon will display his rom-com chops opposite Mandy Moore in Love Wedding Marriage, is heavily involved with the St. Bernard Project, which is helping to rebuild New Orleans. So, you know, he means it when he says he wants to be taken a bit more seriously.

Your wish is my command, Kel.

Now, go do some more push-ups, boy, and let us enjoy for the time being.

Photo: ProjectQAtlanta.com.

Monday, August 30, 2010

Nasty Little Swimmers

How does someone begin to review Piranha 3D?

Someone...does not do such a thing.

There’s no need. The movie’s already gotten a sequel greenlit, and the people who definitely wanted to see it probably already have seen it.

I wanted to see it (camp is hard to pass on)...but then again I didn’t, really, and now that I have I remember exactly why: It just wa’n’t ever gonna be worth it.

This so-called “B movie” is so shamelessly so, it should be thought of as more of a Z movie. And that’s being kind. There is absolutely no redeeming quality to it, but then again that is the point. That is Piranha 3D’s whole raison d’ĂȘtre and the ground upon one should review it. Or attempt to.

The movie’s a salute to the original Piranha movies of decades gone by set during Spring Break in and around sleepy Lake Victoria – all of which should clue you in right there as to the T&Astasticness of its story.

The cast includes Elizabeth Shue, Adam Scott, Steven R. McQueen (TV’s The Vampire Diaries), Gossip Girl’s Jessica Szohr, Ving Rhames, and a maybe-going-full-frontal-ish Jerry O’Connell, who sprinkles his scenes with lots of cheese before gamely chomping on ’em with gusto.

Some of these folks make it to the end credits, most of them make it to the bellies of scores of prehistoric man-eating razor-toothed fish. There is gore galore in this one, btw. Ridikolous amounts of it.

Yet all keep their dignities intact at the end of the day and the movie they’re in on the joke.

And so, if you like this kind of completely mindless entertainment, then Piranha 3D is exactly what you need as the summer season officially winds down. No matter what James Cameron has to say about it.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: The Weinstein Company.
Just Because, Pt. 68

How cute did Anna Paquin and her husband and True Blood co-star Stephen Moyer look at last night’s Emmys?

The newlyweds, easily the best dressed couple of the night, looked tremendous in Alexander McQueen.

Photo: People.com.
Emmy Likes Her Blood New

Last night, Emmy put on quite a show.

The big winners of the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards, hosted by Jimmy Fallon (who was fantastic), were shows both old (AMC’s Mad Men) and new (TV’s Modern Family – yay!), and us, since the show ran at a nice pace and on time. And while I’m at it: What...an opening!

HBO, in what has become a bit of a tradition, ruled the miniseries and movies categories, taking home a lot of hardware for The Pacific and Temple Grandin. Claire Danes won and Emmy for her work on Temple Grandin, while Al Pacino picked up one for You Don’t Know Jack.

Emmys for acting in comedy went to Eric Stonestreet and Jane Lynch for their supporting roles on Modern Family and Glee, respectively; Edie Falco for her leading performance on Showtime’s Nurse Jackie; and Jim Parsons for The Big Bang Theory.

On the drama side, the men of AMC’s Breaking Bad, third-time winner Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul (a first-timer), picked up trophies for their leading and supporting work on the show, while Kyra Sedgwick finally bagged her first Emmy for her turn on TNT’s The Closer, and the exquisite Archie Panjabi received her first for her enigmatic role on The Good Wife.

Top Chef unseated champ-of-many-years-in-the-Reality-category The Amazing Race, and – sorry, Conan! – The Daily Show with Jon Stewart won yet again in the Variety Show race.

For more winners, click here.

And now on to the important stuff: the fashion.

It was a night to wear navy blue or white, with several lady-stars favoring the former, like Glee’s Lea Michele, who did her strapless Oscar de la Renta blue gown proud, Jane Krakowski, and Michele’s co-star Jayma Mays in Burberry; while many others, like Rose Byrne, Julie Benz, Kelly Osbourne, and Kim Kardashian, opting for the latter.

Choosing color was Danes, who stood out in a sparkly Armani Privé. Ditto January Jones, in a love-it-or-hate-it structural cobalt blue Versace; and Keri Russell, whom adored and thought was completely pretty in vintage pink Jean-Louis Scherrer.

Sticking to not-so-basic black was Heidi Klum, who totally...uh...excited me in her mini-Marchesa.

Having said all of this, though, I can’t decide on whether any of them was truly the best dressed of the night (Russell has a clear edge because she is who she is).

I just thought they all played it super-safe, y’ know.

The worst is easier: Naya Rivera from Glee. The too-high hair, the too-high slit on the dress, the color of the dress.... Eek, the whole thing made me want to egg her off the carpet.

Photo: EW.com.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

Friend of No Ordinaries

Twilight Saga player is making the big move to the small screen.

Jackson Rathbone, a.k.a. Jasper Hale, has signed on for a potentially recurring role on ABC’s No Ordinary Family.

The actor, whom I last saw in The Last Airbender, will play a high school classmate of Kay Panabaker’s telepathic Daphne (the daughther in the clan). His character was recently the victim of a home invasion robbery, so odds are her family will help him catch the bad guy and save the day.

The buzzy No Ordinary Family, which co-stars Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz, will premiere on Sept. 28. I’m already planning on liking it.

Photo: FanPop.com.
Paris Picks Up the Baton

Is this like, part of the Party Girl Code or something?

Paris Hilton was arrested last night in Las Vegas on charges of cocaine possession.

Girl, you’re Paris freakin’ Hilton – get someone to hold your s--- for you!

Hilton got busted after police pulled over a car she was ridin’ (dirty) in; the police stopped the vehicle after they believed pot smoke was coming out of it. A search yielded the coke. And the rest is TMZd history.

It’s been kind of a druggy summer for Pare-poo.

In July, she was held by police on Corsica and caught with less than a gram of marijuana on her but released without being charged. Earlier in the month, she was questioned by South African police at the World Cup after she was caught smoking pot. Allegedly.

Old habits die hard, I guess. It was only three years ago that Hilton spent some time in the slammer for violating her probation in an alcohol-related driving case.

I gotta give it to her, though. She was the original bad-seed new-century starlet. She started to go bad, then Nicole Richie started to go bad. But then Richie got her reform on, so Britney Spears went cookoo, right. All the while Lindsay Lohan was struggling with her demons and sent to jail and rehab like it was going out of style.

And now that L2 has been sprung from her latest round of incarceration and treatment, Hilton just had to bring things full circle.

Like, if one party girl leaves the kitchen another has to get caught with her hand in the coke-y jar.

Photo: People.com.

Friday, August 27, 2010

A Gladly Accepted Mission

Is Jeremy Renner the next Tom Cruise?

Well, at least when it comes to the Mission: Impossible franchise, that is?

It seems the answer is…maybe.

Renner
will co-star with the Cruiseter in the upcoming fourthquel as an operative, natch – one that may carry the franchise should its star…uh…retire.

It’s a good choice. Renner showed in The Hurt Locker he’s got the chops and he gives this affable vibe off screen…. My interest is definitely peaked.

Photo: ImageShack.us.
Community Service

The ubiquitous Betty White (this is how you do being everywhere without ridicule, Paris Hilton et al. – by earning it) is gonna school the peeps of Community.

I mean, check her out keeping it real in
this hilarious preview (Community ain’t Glee, Betty).

Show star Joel McHale seems to have had fun with the actress, and from the sound of what he had to say about her character, so will we.

“She is my lover,” he
said. “And she is really experimental – it was disturbing.”

Seriously, though, White will play a demented anthropology professor, and hilarity will ensue. See
Exhibit B.

So, obviously, I cannot wait for the NBC comedy to return on Sept. 23.

Cannot, I tell ya.

Photo: EW.com.

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Pipin’ In

Scream 4 has added a couple of belters to its cast – and I likey a lot.

Kristen Bell (pictured here) and True Blood star Anna Paquin have joined Neve Campbell, Courteney Cox, David Arquette, and newcomers Emma Roberts, Hayden Panettiere, and Adam Brody, among others, in director Wes Craven’s 2011 fourthquel, which has been shooting in Michigan.

I wonder what is in store for these two gals....

Photo: WWD.com.

Update: Also on board for Scream 4? 90210 starlet Shenae Grimes, who tweeted about being on set about to shoot a cameo, and Lucy Hale from ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

The Unknown Woman

Zac Efron has gotten himself a new leading lady.

On screen, that is – Vanessa Hudgens needn’t worry.

Taylor Schilling, the lead on NBC’s last-season bust Mercy, has nabbed the female lead opposite the actor in The Lucky One, an adaptation of the Nicholas Sparks novel about a Marine (Efron) who’s survived three tours of duty in Iraq and attributes his good luck to a photograph he carried of a woman (Schilling) he doesn’t even know.

When he returns to the States, Efron’s character sets out to find her...and live happily ever after with her.

Unless she’s taken, in which case...awkward.

Photo: BostonHerald.com.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Sprung

Lindsay Lohan is out of rehab.

The actress, who was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 90 days in rehab, checked out of UCLA’s Neuropsychiatric Hospital today after a little more than three weeks. This after, due to overcrowding and good behavior, L2’s jail term was cut short to 13 days instead of the three months ordered by the judge earlier this month.

A new judge will decide tomorrow whether Lohan will need to stick to additional outpatient treatment.

I just hope girlfriend doesn’t go back to burning the candles at both ends any time soon.

Photo: GossipRocks.com.

Update: Here is an interesting take on why this whole process may have been the best thing that could’ve happened to Linds. Evidently, it may have proven she wasn’t as troubled as everyone thought she was.
Working the Beat

Aussie movies...they don’t scream wide American release.

Perhaps Red Hill releasing on Nov. 5 will have better luck since it stars one Ryan Kwanten, a.k.a. True Blood’s Jason Stackhouse.

In the movie, the actor plays a police officer who moves to a small country town for peace and quiet, but instead finds chaos in the aftermath of a local prison break during which a convicted wife killer escapes, dead-set on revenge on the officer’s new outpost.

With luck we’ll see this one at a small little art house.

Photo: TheFilmsmith.com.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Dr. Jen

First Lisa Kudrow played Courteney Cox’s mean dermatologist on Cougar Town, and now Jennifer Aniston is
guesting on the show as Cox’s shrink.

Aniston will, indeed, appear on the ABC comedy when it comes back for its sophomore season on Sept. 22.

“She’s going to play Jules’ [C2] shrink named Bonnie,” said executive producer Bill Lawrence. “Kind of a get-too-involved-in-her-life-type of therapist.

“Those guys are so close in real life they kind of do that for each other anyway. Bonnie has the life Jules wishes she has.”

Lawrence also revealed that he fully intends on having the character come back at some point down the line. “We’re very intentionally implying that it’s a therapist [Jules] has been using for a while, and we’re certainly not going to make it like they’ll never see each other again. So I’m crossing my fingers that if [Jennifer] has a good time it’ll happen again.”

Let’s hope so. Cougar Town only got better as its freshman season progressed, so it will be nice to see Cox reconnect on screen with her real-life BFF. Maybe Dr. Bonnie’s office is in, say, the same building as Lisa Kudrow’s character and we can see the three of ’em together someday?

I’d be there for that.

Photo: MonstersAndCritics.com.
Teenage Dream-y Guy

I’ve been tweeting Katy Perry asking her to tell us who the guy in her “
Teenage Dream” video is, and now…People.com has answered my question.

The tall, lean, I-want-to-uhh-hang-out-with-him machine is the multi-hyphenating
Josh Kloss, an actor-musician-rippedmodel who appeared on The O.C., and wrote, directed, and produced a short titled Switch and Hedges.

But what to what’s really important: Kloss’ abs.

OK, so the guy says he doesn’t slave himself at the gym (yeah, right).

“Just like everyone else, I wish I had a committed routine,” he would like us to believe, “but life and spare time are unpredictable. I really just try to eat wise proportions.”

Uh huh.

“And when I do work out, I train like it’s the last time I’ll get a chance!”

Now, that I can buy.

Photo: DigitalSpy.co.uk.
A Piece of Heaven for Saul

7th Heaven star Stephen Collins is going to spend some time with the Walkers from TV’s Brothers & Sisters this fall, chiefly with Ron Rifkin’s Saul.

Collins will play a new love interest for the beloved Walker uncle, who was revealed to be HIV-positive in last season’s momentous finale. The actor is expected to stick around for multiple episodes.

I hope he is good to Saul.

Photo: TVGuide.com.
Love in the Time of Bosnia

Angelina Jolie has announced that her next project, a love story, will be set during the 1992-’95 Bosnian War.

The movie, about a a couple who meet on the eve of the war and the effect it has on their relationship, is not “not a political statement,” Jolie said in a statement issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees after the actress visited Sarajevo over the weekend.

Her co-stars are expected to be from the various ethnicities of the former Yugoslavia.

“I would like to involve as many local people as possible and learn as much as I can,” she said.

Photo: BumpShack.com.

Update: Turns out Angie is writing and directing the Bosnia romance, not starring in it.
Schmemmys for...

Betty White is on a roll – we all know that – and now the actress has another another to prove it.

The It Lady bagged her fifth career Emmy for her critically acclaimed, fan-fueled Saturday Night Live hosting gig last season.

Among the other folks picking up Schmemmys over the weekend were Ryan Seacrest, whose Jaime Oliver’s Food Revolution beat Kathy Griffin’s Life on the D-List (the irony is Griffin is the one who started calling the awards “Schmemmys” to begin with – the real ones air next week – and Seacrest is her sworn frenemy).

Anne Hathaway also won an Emmy, for her voice work on The Simpsons.

Photo: NYMag.com.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Just Because, Pt. 67

I gotta start paying more attention to tennis.

Vogue already is: The magazine has caught Murray Mania, as evidenced by a spread featuring Andy Murray, Britain’s number-one tennis player, in its September issue.

Take a look-see at Murray’s comeandgetit muscles....

Ace!

Photo: Vogue.com.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Accidental Pleasure

Maggie Gyllenhaal is going to star in Hysteria, an indie rom-com centering on...uhh...the invention of the vibrator.

The Crazy Heart Academy Award nominee will play the daughter of a doctor (Jonathan Pryce), who, along with his young colleague (the dashing Hugh Dancy, whose Adam I recently finally saw and loved), is treating cases of female hysteria in Victorian London.

Dancy and his best friend (to be played by Rupert Everett) experiment with a new electrical device to treat the condition, which, used to be treated and cured by some with a manual pelvic massage.

How...convienient for the doctors, huh. And how serendipitous for the ladies.

Photo: Maggie-Gyllenhaal.org.
Penguin King

I’d been wondering what Jim Carrey was up to – boyfriend’s been awfully quiet on Twitter.

Turns out, the actor has been doing business and has signed on to a long-in-development movie about a New York City businessman whose life is turned upside down when he acquires six penguins in the mail.

Mr. Popper’s Penguins, based on the 1938 award-winning book by Richard and Florence Atwater, will be directed by Mark (Mean Girls) Waters and will combine live-action and CG elements.

I smell a holiday hit for Carrey....

Photo: AAA-Fashion.com.
A Woman of Importance

21 Grams co-stars Naomi Watts and Sean Penn are reuniting for director Doug (The Bourne Identity, Mr. & Mrs. Smith) Liman’s upcoming Fair Game.

Based on the tell-all of ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame (Watts), who was exposed after her husband (Penn) ruffled feathers in Washington by accusing the Bush administration of bending the truth regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Fair Game looks like a first-rate nail-biter.

For an amuse bouche, check out the Kate Beckinsale starrer Nothing But the Truth. If you like this kinda movie....

Fair Game arrives in theaters on Nov. 5.

Photo: AccidentalSexiness.com.
Maybe Getting Ready to Rockford

Could it be...could Josh Holloway be lured back to TV sooner rather than later?

NBC is looking at the Lost star to star in another stab of a reboot of the ’70s private-eye classic The Rockford Files – Dermot Mulroney actually headlined a first pilot that went nowhere.

However, it seems that there haven’t been any talks between the actor and the network. So this is just a rumor. A very good one.

David Shore, who executive produces TV’s House and is overseeing the new Rockford Files with Steve Carell and Peter Berg’s production companies, has said, though, that Holloway is a “viable choice,” but, at the same time, added that “it’s too premature” to start naming names.

I wouldn’t say, not when the erstwhile Sawyer is concerned.

Photo: EW.com.

Thursday, August 19, 2010

Ricky Gets Covered

Like any good multi-hyphenate, Ricky Martin is releasing a memoir this fall.

The book, simply titled Me, promises to be a most revelatory look at the life of the Grammy winner.

Martin will share memories from his childhood, his experiences in Menudo, and details about coming to terms with his sexuality and announcing he is gay.

Me, and its Spanish-language counterpart Yo, will be published on Nov. 2.

Photo: USAToday.com.
Chelsea Does the VMAs

The phenomenal Chelsea Handler tweeted that she had a big thing to say on her E! show last night, and she delivered.

Pass the Belvedere, yo: The comedian
announced that she is hosting the 2010 MTV Video Music Awards next month.

“This has been a huge year for hip-hop and rap, and it is well-known that I have the closest ties with these communities, musically and sexually,” Handler said of being chosen for the gig. “I am to rap and hippity-hop, what Warren Buffet is to finance, minus the sex.”

This is the first time a lady will have hosted the show since Roseanne Barr did, which was ages ago.

Among those expected to attend the VMAs, which are in L.A. this year, are scheduled performers Justin Bieber, Drake, and Florence + the Machine, and presenters Ke$ha, Ne-Yo, Nicki Minaj, Emma Stone (Easy A), Ashley Greene, Gossip Girl’s Penn Badgley, and Selena Gomez, among others.

Photo: BehindBlondiePark.com.
Score, Fans of Ben

I had been wondering – OK, tweeted...once – about what Scott Speedman was up to these days, and now I don’t have to anymore.

The erstwhile Ben Covington of Felicity is thisclose to joining Channing Tatum and Rachel McAdams in The Vow, the based-on-the-real-life story of a couple of newlyweds whose life was derailed after they were hit by a truck and the wife was left in a coma.

Speedman would play McAdams’ former fiancĂ© who comes back into the picture.

Photo: TheCinemaSource.com.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Last Dance?

The trailer for Darren Aronofsky’s
Black Swan hit the WWW yesterday, and it does an excellent job of capturing the combination of moodiness and intrigue that has been building up buzz for the film for a bit now.

Set in the world of ballerinas, the decidedly noir stars Natalie Portman who, quite ominously, says as the preview starts that she had “the craziest dream last night, about a girl who’s turned into a swan…but her prince falls for the wrong girl and…so she kills herself.”

I think the prince Portman’s Nina talks about is played by Vincent Cassel, and the so-called wrong girl is Mila Kunis’ Eve Carrington-esque character, Lilly.

As for whether Portman turns into a swan, well…I guess we’ll have to watch. But check out what happens at the 1:52 mark of the trailer:



Is Black Swan one of the most anticipated movie of fall, or what.
Betty Writes

The Itness of Betty White knows no bounds.

The Golden Girl has signed on to add author to her already-rich résumé.

White reportedly will pen two books for G. P. Putnam’s Sons, with the first, Listen Up!, set to be published next spring.

The collection of lessons learned and observations made during her long tenure in Hollywood will be followed by a second book titled The Zoo and I: Betty and Her Friends that will focus more on White’s work as an animal-rights activist.

Must reads, right?

Photo: iVillage.com.
The Beautiful Chill

January Jones is ready to get her blockbusting on.

The Mad Men actress is joining James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Nicholas Hoult (A Single Man), Rose Byrne (FX’s Damages), and Kevin Bacon, among others, in Matthew Vaughn’s 2011 tentpole X-Men Origins: First Class.

Jones will play the telepathic Emma Frost, a.k.a. the White Queen.

Photo: StyleList.com.

Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Blood-y Hotness

I don’t really read Rolling Stone, but every once in a while I do pick up an issue, usually when Madonna is on the cover.

That’s because – and I’ll give the magazine this much because it deserves it – they know how to put on an enticing cover y’ know.

Their
latest, featuring True Blood stars Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, and the irrepressibly H-O-T Alexander SkarsgÄrd, is a makes-the-blood-go good one.

It’s all about sex – and SkarsgĂ„rd’s abs-tonishing body, IMHO – and reflects the article within perfectly, especially since Moyer discusses the virtues of vamp sex.

“If we go from a base level,” he said, “vampires create a hole in the neck where there wasn’t one before.”

Tell me more….

“It’s a de-virginization – breaking the hymen, creating blood, and then drinking the virginal blood.”

Ooh….

“And there’s something sharp, the fang, which is probing and penetrating. So that’s pretty sexy. I think that makes vampires attractive.”

Yes, yesy, yes!

It’s all about that delicious danger. And about picking up the new Rolling Stone as soon as humanly possible to see the rest of the photos.

Photo: RollingStone.com.

Update: Also revealed in the Rolling Stone article? The fact that Alexander SkarsgÄrd will not wear a c----sock on set.

“I don’t want a sock around it, that feels ridiculous,” he said. “If we’re naked in the scene, then I’m naked. I’ve always been that way.

And we heart you for it!
Mandy Checks Back In

The lovely and underused-by-Hollywood-lately Mandy Moore is visiting the good ol’ doctors of Grey’s Anatomy again next season.

Moore, who played a pivotal role is last May’s deadly season finale, will reprise her guesting role as Mary, a patient of Dr. Bailey’s (Chandra Wilson) in this fall’s sixth episode.

Up next, the singer-actress will be heard in Disney’s Tangled, which is due out on Thanksgiving.

Photo: TVGuide.com.
The One Who Would Be Lisbeth

The wait is over.

Rooney Mara will play Lisbeth Salander for David Fincher is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and its follow-ups.

The up-and-comer was seen in last spring’s Nightmare on Elm Street remake and will co-star in Fincher’s upcoming movie about the rise of Facebook, The Social Network.

She joins Daniel Craig, who will play the Millennium Trilogy’s protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist; Robin Wright, who will portray his editor and lover; and Stellan SkarsgĂ„rd, who will take on the role of businessman Martin Vanger.

Production on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is set to begin next month in Sweden for a Dec. 21, 2011, worldwide release.

Photo: InterviewMagazine.com.

Monday, August 16, 2010

Look Who’s Coming Out

Spoiler Alert!

Earlier this summer it was reported that a male character on The CW’s 90210 would be coming out, and now we know who that will be.

Trevor Donovan’s Teddy will be at the center of a “storyline [that] will be written very well and [showcase a] change in the character [that] will be organic, not overnight.

“It’s going to be a great Season 3. I look forward to chatting with you all as we progress.”

Well, that’s what the actor tweeted, at least.

Love. It!

Photo: TinyPic.com.

Update: Click here to find out more about what the powers that be hope will be a “cathartic journey” for Trevor Donovan’s Teddy as the character comes out of the closet.
The Great Return of Joaquin! Joaquin! Joaquin!

The long-expected documentary that Casey Affleck was working on under the radar (ish), the one chronicling his brother-in-law Joaquin Phoenix’s so-called career leap from acting to rapping, I’m Still Here, is ready to be judged.

Check out the intriguing teaser here.

Looks like we’ll see Phoenix’s infamous beyond-bizarre visit with David Letterman and his “performance” at LIV at the Fontainebleau Miami Beach last year, which I witnessed and earned him the nickname Scraggles from yours truly, among much more, including, reportedly, drugs, excess, and a new brand of oblivion.

I’m Still Here will be released on Sept. 10.

Photo: FilmJunk.com.
If I Could Speed Up Time

Cher is getting make yet another splash.

The iconic multi-hyphenate, who will be seen on the big screen this fall in Burlesque, is working with hit-making songwriter Diane Warren on a new musical project.

Warren, btw, wrote one of Cher’s two big tunes on the movie, the big power ballad “You Haven’t Seen the Last of Me.”

I bet that’s right.

“[The new music] really won’t be Believe-ish,” she said. “It will be more…I don’t know how to say it. I can’t put a genre to it. It’s a little bit more real instruments, like guitars and stuff like that.

“I just got some of the songs and I’m just learning [them], so I’m kind of at that beginning stage where you’re taking baby steps.”

Take your time, girl. We are waiting. But really...hurry!

Photo: CherWorld.com.
From Paris with Gossip

The fourth season of The CW’s Gossip Girl is, as Rachel Zoe said of the Golden Globes, imminent.

Pictures of Blake Lively and Leighton Meester shooting on location in Paris have been everywhere, and now there’s a brand new trailer to tease what’s a-comin’ on the not-so-guilty-pleasure show.

And I XOXO it so.

Photo: LaineyGossip.com.

Update: As Season 4 gets underway, Serena (Lively) will be getting romanced by Sam Page.

The actor, last seen up to no good on Desperate Housewives, will join the Upper East Siders in a multi-episode arc as Serena’s new love interest beginning in October.

The Runaways

Paul Haggis’ The Next Three Days may be a Russell Crowe vehicle, but as far as I’m concerned, this fall entry, a remake of a French movie, is Elizabeth Banks’ starmaker.

The thrilling-looking drama follows the story of the Brennans, a seemingly perfect family whose lives are turned topsy turvy when Lara (Banks) is is arrested for a murder she says she didn’t commit.

Three years into her sentence, John (Crowe) is struggling to hold it together, raising their son and teaching at college while pursuing every means available to prove her innocence.

With the rejection of their final appeal, Lara becomes suicidal and John decides there is only one thing left for him to do: break her out of prison.



The Next Three Days arrives in theaters on Nov. 19.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Happy 52, From Me to You, M!

Madonna got the party started for her 52nd birthday early when she hit the Shoreditch House, a trendy – what else, right? – club in East London last night. (Her actual b-day is on Monday.)

Girlfriend looked lovely, did she not?

Love the hair, love the dress (although I would’ve gone for floor length), and love, love, love that bracelet-ring combo.

Long live the Queen!

Photo: MadonnaTribe.com.
Hot Shots

How many buddy cop movies does a year need?

It seems the answer is two: a good one – that’d be today’s feature, The Other Guys, which, I know, came out last week – and a bad one (last February’s similarly themed Cop Out, which, alright, was kinda OK).

Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg (in his first bona fide comedic turn ever) star as Allen Gamble and Terry Hoitz, a couple of desk-jockey NYPD detectives, the saddest of perennials living under the shadow of the department’s superstars (Samuel L. Jackson and Dwayne Johnson).

Det. Gamble is a meticulous forensic accountant more interested in paperwork than hitting the streets, while tougher-guy Det. Hoitz is the man in blue New Yorkers know as “the guy who shot Derek Jeter” during an infamous and most unfortunate run-in that ended up costing the Yankees the season (“he shoulda shot A-Rod!” someone in Hoitz’s support group of cops that have shot their firearms in the line of duty says).

The two are known at work as the fallas of the title, the guys who never blossomed and do the paperwork of those who did.

When an opportunity arises for Gamble and Hoitz to step up – they have to find, arrest, then protect David Ershon (Steven Coogan), a shady tycoon, all because Gamble has discovered some unpermitted scaffolding on one of Ershon’s properties or som’in’ silly like that – things don’t quite go as planned.

Will the two save the day?

Well, whaddya think....

Will they do so in the most hilarious of ways (I mean, I had tears running down my cheek, and my abs got quite a work-out, at one point). You can bet on it.

I really enjoyed The Other Guys, a late-summer comedy co-written by director Adam McKay and Chris Henchy (who is married to Brooke Shields, has worked on HBO’s Entourage, and written for that show and TV’s Spin City). The humor is non-stop thanks to a not-necessarily-taut-but-effective script that’s peppered with Arrested Development-style take-aways, not to mention a couple of personality-rich characters that are tremdous fun.

Ferrell is a like-him-or-hate-him kinda personality, and this movie totally puts the guy square in the Like Him side of things. His Gamble is a ridikolous throwback of sorts, doesn’t realize his wife played by Eva Mendes is a total stunner, and has a fantastic backstory as a pimp. Hello, belly laughs!

And Wahlberg, as his straight man, is, well...he combines bravado with vulnerability (his Hoitz is a “peacock” that needs to be allowed “to fly”) to great effect.

These two may be The Other Guys, but they are a winning pair at that, alright.

My Rating ***1/2

Photo: Sony Pictures.
Twin Expectations

Neil Patrick Harris is going to be a daddy.

We can officially start calling him a DILF!

“So, get this: David [Burtka, Harris’ actor/chef partner] and I are expecting twins this fall,” the How I Met Your Mother MVP tweeted earlier today. “We’re super excited/nervous/thrilled.”

The couple’s children
reportedly are due via surrogate in October.

This is the kind of news that makes me smile, that should make the country smile. Families of all kinds are happening, and it’s thoroughly reassuring when a couple who has a few odds against them works that much harder to make a dream come true.

Photo: UsMagazine.com.

Update: Boy, oh boy...and girl, oh girl!

NPH and David Burtka are said to be welcoming a son and a daughter this fall.
Just Because, Pt. 66

Models becoming actors, that’s just the natural order of things.

David Gandy, the tanned British stunner with the piercing blue eyes in the Dolce & Gabbana Light Blue ad, has quite the ambition. He wants to be Bond, James Bond.

The chap says the role would be “a dream come true,” but for now, he’s working on his craft with small roles, like the one he shot in a short with Helena Christensen.

Photo: PhotoBucket.com.

Friday, August 13, 2010

Trying to Make It

If there’s anything at all I like more than Ryan Reynolds is the idea of a movie starring R2 as a man on the run.

The actor I like to call Ry is at the top of a shortlist of actors considered to join Denzel Washington in Safe House.

Reynolds
would play the only surviving agent of an attack on a CIA safe house as he races to get a dangerous prisoner (Washington) to a second location before being taken out by bad guys who want them both dead.

Photo: EW.com.
Full Speed Ahead

Denzel Washington is on a train funk.

The actor, who starred in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 last year, is hopping on another one in November – and he’s taking Chris Pine with him when he goes.

The two are starring in Unstoppable, an upcoming action movie from Tony Scott, about a runaway train carrying a cargo of toxic chemical and the two men who are going to “run this bitch down,” a.k.a. stop it...or die trying to:



Unstoppable races into theaters on Nov. 12.
Rebound Guy

Looks like we shan’t see Calista Flockhart’s Kitty grieve too much next season on TV’s Brothers & Sisters.

In fact, her first significant love interest since the death of her husband, Robert (the departing Rob Lowe, who is now on Parks and Recreation full time), has been cast and will be played by Jeremy Davidson from Lifetime’s Army Wives.

The fella will “very different than Robert, and a very different guy than the kind of men Kitty’s been with her whole life.”

Not to mention, ruggedly handsome, no?

Photo: Zap2It.com.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Woman Within

Some people say what matters most isn’t the destination but the journey, while others say the exact opposite is true.

Ryan Murphy’s Eat Pray Love – starring Julia Roberts, a.k.a. Hollywood’s last true movie star (right?) – says both are important...especially when you get to indulge in some pasta; find your center, if not yourself, at the source of all that is; and fall in love in paradise.

Eat Pray Love, a “big, juicy movie” by all expectations, telegraph-tells the story of Liz Gilbert, a thriving writer-eventually-turned-Oprah-approved-literary-sensation.

Before she became an Official Book Club Selection, though, Liz was just another New York City career-woman succeeding in some areas of her life but not in others – and as the movie begins (well, after a 20-minute-or-so prologue), a divorcĂ©e embarking on a year-long journey that takes her to Italy, India, and Bali to essentially find herself. The woman who would be....

The movie, with its built-in audience of eaters, prayers, and lovers, is going to be a hit.

That Roberts – luminous, wonderful, Oscar-winning Roberts – stars in it is just the parmesan on top of the spaguetti, the enlightenment at the end of the meditation, the sun-drenched kiss at the end of the courtship. I say this because, as a movie this adaptation doesn’t succeed.

Not completely...not the way it could have, and certainly not the way fans such as myself would want for Roberts.

I never read the book upon which the movie is based, and a couple of friends who did totally didn’t endorse that I do, so I can only judge what I saw on the big screen, which was entertaining, but not at all... that profound.

Why did Liz turn around one night and told her husband (Billy Crudup) whom we were asked to assume was a bit of a what, a nitwit? a flake? that she didn’t want to be married anymore? Why was she so quick to sour on her rebound romance with a younger guy (James Franco)? And who paid for her trip, anyway?

These are details that were brushed over at best and ignored at worst. I can appreciate that Eat Pray Love, and Murphy, for that matter, has great aspirations, but it is hindered by them as well, by this need to put Roberts and us there, where it all happened for Gilbert. But then it kinda just leaves us there...to assign motivation to action.

The movie eats a bit more than it probably should, cannot bring us inward with Roberts as she prays, and almost kinda sorta rushes into love without offering anything in the way of an epilogue. It wants to be a motivational example for the women who devoured Gilbert’s story, a girl-power manifest gorgeously photographed for silver-screen consumption. It, however, ends up being a subpar one; scenic as can be, but ultimately unsatisfying.

Take the Eat portion of it, for instance. It’s much too long when you consider that, perhaps, the Love part would be more significant because that’s when Liz meets Felipe (Javier Bardem, playing the man who would become her second husband, I believe) and he journey begins (to end? to really begin?). The Pray section, a transitional stage, provides the most insight (by virtue of our heroine learning to talk her quest out), and, to boot, a tremendous turn by Richard Jenkins as Richard from Texas, a man who helps Liz understand the importance of what she’s doing.

Roberts is accessible as ever in the role of a woman lost, eagerly looking for herself. She is the reason, the real reason, this will be the blockbuster she needs it to be (Duplicity disappointed; Valentine’s Day was not hers to brag about at the end of the day). As much as an anchor as she is, though, she is weighed down by the uneveness of the product that Murphy has delivered.

While the movie may not be a winner, Murphy shouldn’t feel discouraged: I understand the book wasn’t all that, anyway. And like I said, this one, much like the woman who inspired it, is gonna do just fine.

My Rating **1/2

Photo: Sony Pictures.