He Could Never Be a Fool – But He’ll Play One

He may very well play James Bond, but Daniel Craig isn’t afraid of acting the fool from time to time.

Craig – a.k.a. the sexiest man alive – premiered yesterday his new, low-budget film Flashbacks of a Fool, in which he plays an aging, miserable actor.

“[My character, Joe Scot] has failed as a human being, and I wanted to explore that,” Craig told reporters at the film’s world premiere in London.

“I think you have to work hard at not becoming disillusioned about what you do for a living. If you have any success in what you do for a living, you have to maintain an energy and love of it. If you can, that’s a great thing.”

Flashbacks of a Fool is a return to small-scale, personal projects for Craig. It was written and directed by his longtime friend Baillie Walsh.

I don’t know when or if it will open in the United States, but here’s to hoping it’s soon.

Photo: Moldova.org.

The Elle Word

This is why I heart Kristen Bell so much.

The actress, who will be seen in the will-it-be-funny? Forgetting Sarah Marshall on April 18, recently told EW.com that she hopes to be a part of TV’s Heroes’ third season this fall.

“I have made it more than clear that I want to come back and [Heroes producers] have made it more than clear that they want me back,” she said.

“I love that the next season is supposed to be subtitled ‘Villains.’ [The erstwhile Veronica Mars plays bad girl Elle.] I am thrilled by the idea that my good friend Zach Quinto (Sylar) and I could possibly have scenes together.”

I am thrilled by the idea of more Bell in any way, shape, or form.

Photo: WatchingHeroes.com.

Getting Stone-d

I spent the better part of yesterday catching up with TiVo, getting to know Eli Stone.

Question: How is it that this show isn’t more popular?

I was hooked after watching the pilot. Nine episodes later, I’m completely addicted. (I’ve got two more in queue – and I cannot wait to watch’em).

This first season is good.

Co-created by Greg Berlanti (TV’s Everwood, Brothers & Sisters), Eli Stone’s so far a cohesive mid-season replacement that had better be back in the fall.

The show stars Jonny Lee Miller in the titular role of a San Francisco lawyer who starts getting visions that inform the cases he should take. But are the visions the possible effect of a recently discovered brain aneurysm…or are they a higher calling?

It co-stars a never-better Natasha Henstridge (oh, how far she’s come since Species!), Loretta Devine (a hoot and a half!), the very handsome and appealing Sam Jaeger and Matt Letscher, and Victor Garber (welcome back on the tube, Spy Daddy!).

And did I mention Eli Stone succeeds where Viva Laughlin failed so miserably?

Sometimes, when Eli gets a vision, the people around him break into song and dance, often to George Michael’s repertoire (the singer already has appeared on the show, in completely integrated and effective story lines). It’s a touch of whimsy that totally works.

Yeah – I’m in it now.... I mean, just look at Miller (pictured at right). McDreamy who?

Photo: MediaInCanada.com.

What’s to Come

Lost is off the air until – gasp! – April 24, but could you resist running a photo of Josh Holloway if you had the option?

I didn’t think so.

Holloway recently talked with Entertainment Weekly, and revealed that now that he and the rest of the cast know when the show will come to an end (2010), well…he’s a happy camper (with really great hair).

“Now, the story carries everything and we’re just players in it, which I like,” he said. “The writers can be concise. I like that, too.”

Photo: EW.com.

Sex-y Music

Sex and the City director Michael Patrick King is kissing and is telling – about the movie’s soundtrack, that is.

King has told EW.com that Fergie has recorded the movie’s opening number, “Labels & Love,” and that co-star Jennifer Hudson, who plays Carrie’s assistant, has recorded a ballad titled “All Dressed Up in Love,” which shall play over the end credits.

“She sings it like nobody’s business,” he said.

Sex and the City opens on May 30. Cosmos for everyone!

Photo: New Line Cinema.

XOXO!

The CW is learning.

The young network is stirring up controversy with its provocative new ads tied to Gossip Girl’s post-writers strike return on April 21, and I cannot get enough.

One of the ads (pictured at right) features It Girl Serena (Blake Lively) and Nate (Chace Crawford) – uhh…why not Dan? – while another features dethroned Queen Bee Blair (Leighton Meester) and bad boy Chuck (Ed Westwick).

And oh yeah, the actors appear lustily intertwined. And there’s a big ol’ tag line reading “OMFG.”

Indeed.

Photo: HollywoodReporter.com.

Did NBC Read My Mind?

Just last night I was thinking NBC needed to do something to keep the memory of Heroes alive and well among fans.

I thought the network really ought to re-run the second season or something.

This is better: Starting on April 15, a new installment of a comic will debut each Tuesday through mid-September, which is when Heroes‘ third season will debut, on the show’s official site.

“We’re focusing on a group of agents within the Company,” said show writer Chuck Kim. “We’ll be seeing Bob and Elle and The Haitian in there, and we’ll be touching on HRG [a.k.a. Horn-Rimmed Glasses Man or Noah Bennett]. The story will start at right about the end of season two.”

That’s what I call whetting one’s appetite.

Photo: EW.com.

I’m Just Sayin’

New production photos of Quantum of Solace, the new James Bond movie opening on Nov. 7, have hit the Web, and O-M-G.

Can I just take a moment to imagine star Daniel Craig…running toward me?

Oh dear….

Photo: MGM/Columbia Pictures.

Simply Irresistible, Pt. 29

Name: Amanda Seyfried

Age: 23

You know her because: She played a Plastic in Mean Girls, her murder on TV’s Veronica Mars was the driving force behind the show’s outstanding first season; she constantly steals scenes on HBO’s Big Love.

Up next: A co-starring role in Mamma Mia!; the third season of Big Love.

Photo: Universal Pictures (Mamma Mia!).

Simply Irresistible, Pt. 28

Name: Ashton Holmes

Age: 30

You know him because: He played Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence.

Up next: A co-starring role in Smart People.

Photo: New Line Cinema (A History of Violence).

One Day You Are In…The Next You Are Out

After four seasons as one of Bravo’s signature series, the über-successful Project Runway is sashaying to Lifetime.

The Golden Girls’ longtime home – oh, did you hear they’re leaving for the Hallmark Channel? – has picked up Project Runway and will air the sixth season in November.

Yeah – that sound you hear is the sound of Heidi Klum going “Auf Wiedersehen.”

(The Weinstein Company already has begun pre-production on the fifth season for Bravo, which is scheduled to air in June.)

The move has prompted legal action by NBC/Universal, Bravo’s parent company, because it essentially asserts it got the shaft at the negotiation table.

The counsel to The Weinstein Company, meanwhile, believes “this lawsuit is without merit.”

All I know for sure is the catfight’s on. Meow.

Photo: StyleITOnline.com.

Be Careful with Your Heart

In director David Gordon Green’s searing Snow Angels, a tight-knit Pennsylvania community is drawn closer together when tragedy befalls one of their own.

Just to put in an immediate state of alarm, Green opens his film with a pair of ominous gun shots. Then, he flashes back several weeks.

Sam Rockwell and Kate Beckinsale play Glenn and Annie, an estranged couple and parents to 4-year-old daughter Tara.

Glenn and Annie are each trying to pick up the pieces of their broken marriage. He’s a born-again Christian who drinks too much; she’s a waitress who is having an affair with a co-worker’s philandering husband.

They are not good people. To say that they’re flawed is easy – they are each other’s flaw, and each is so consumed by what they feel they need and want, neither realizes the effect their actions have on those around them.

Michael Angarano (a.k.a. Jack’s son on TV’s Will & Grace) plays Arthur, an outsider-ish high school student in the throes of a first romance dealing with his parent’s separation.

If he isn’t careful, Arthur risks making a mess of his life, just like his parents or like Glenn and Annie.

While his father (Who’s That Girl’s Griffin Dunne), who has left his family, struggles to figure out what he wants, his mother warns Arthur not to bottle up his feelings. This after he’s made a tragic discovery…you know, the one that leads to those two gun shots.

Snow Angels, which premiered at the Miami International Film Festival in March, plays like quite a first-rate soap-opera, but it really is a heartbreaking story of good love gone bad…of warning signs.

Snow is beautiful. It blankets everything, providing everyone a clean slate.

But it can be dangerous as well. You have to be careful; it can make everything cold.

Green, the man behind All the Real Girls and Undertow (a film I have yet to rent), directs it in a way that makes the audience feel as though they’re intruding in these people’s lives. The effect is unsettling, but oddly, quite captivating.

Rating ***1/2

Photo: Warner Independent Pictures.

An Independent Spirit

I said it once before and I’ll say it again: As an actress, Mandy Moore thrives in roles that call for her to be slightly wicked, like in American Dreamz or Saved!, you know.

Just recently I rented Dedication, an independent film directed by Justin Theroux in which Moore plays a less-than-sunny children’s-book illustrator.

The film isn’t the best film we didn’t watch last year, but it certainly showcased Moore’s range in a way that neither Because I Said So or License to Wed did. Hollywood is doing everybody a disservice by pigeonholing her in romantic comedies.

As evidenced by the risks she’s taken in her recording career – eschewing the pop star track (which boasted “I Wanna Be With You,” among others) to put out a CD of covers; releasing the folky and underappreciated Wild Hope – Moore likes a challenge. So I say give it to her.

Moore is ready to be extraordinary, so have a little faith in her.

Photo: PhotoBucket.com.

All…That…Football

Anyone who knows me knows I don’t know much about football, so I’ll just say Leatherheads fumbles a bit in the beginning but ultimately scores a touchdown.

That’s all the football talk I’ve got.

George Clooney directs this story about the sport’s early years. It’s 1925, and it’s a time in which college football’s everything, and professional football’s nothing.

Clooney stars as Dodge Connolly, a charming but scrappy football ol’ timer who is determined to guide the Duluth Bulldogs from bar brawls to packed stadiums. Only problem is no one really cares about them, not even their sponsor.

With the entire league facing certain collapse, Dodge convinces the golden boy of college football, Carter Rutherford (John Krasinski, a.k.a. Jim on TV’s The Office), a beloved war hero, to join his ragtag ranks.

But this hot shot Rutherford is almost too good to be true, and Chicago Tribune journalist Lexie Littleton (Renée Zellweger) is out to prove that’s the case.

While she digs up the dirt on this It Boy, the two teammates start to become serious off-field rivals for her fickle affections.

And as pro football becomes less like the freewheeling sport he knew and loved, Dodge must fight to keep his guys together and to get the girl of his dreams.

Leatherheads is far from perfect, but Clooney makes the movie work. It has a style that is hard to resist – like him, it’s charming, fun, and serious enough when it needs to be.

Zellweger, as we all know from Chicago and Down with Love, simply shines in period pieces that are all about sass, and Krasinski is perfectly cast as the dreamy up-and-comer to watch.

But the movie‘ first and third acts, with their slow setup and spotty conclusion, respectively, drop the ball – a little last minute football talk…ha! – but Leatherheads more than makes up for it with a thoroughly enjoyable…uhh…whatever’s football talk for the in-between.

My Rating ***

Photo: Universal Pictures.

Hangin’ Tough

Well, it’s happening…the New Kids on the Block are reuniting.

The five Kids – Danny Wood, Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg, and Jonathan Knight – made it official on Today this morning, looking very sharp and all grown up in their suits, when they appeared on the show to announce that they are, indeed, getting back together.

“No turning back now,” Wahlberg said upon being greeted by screaming fans.

They said they’ve been in the studio since August, and that on May 16, they will return to Rockefeller Plaza for their first live performance in 15 years as part of Today’s summer concert series.

Uh – call your school chums and plan a reunion in NYC.

NKTOB will release an album this summer, and they'll launch a limited tour this fall (yes, there will be dancing).

Photo: People.com.

Goody Goody Gum Drops!

One of my favorite TV shows, the very funny 30 Rock, has well-earned itself a 2007 Peabody Award.

Yet another sweet victory for Tina Fey (pictured at right)!

Also being singled out for the year that was were Dexter, Mad Men, Project Runway, and The Colbert Report.

The Peabodys will be presented at a June 16 luncheon hosted by Brian Williams.

30 Rock returns with the first of its post-writers strike episodes on April 10.

Photo: NBC.com.

Just Like a Bomb

Leona Lewis is about to explode.

Her smash single “Bleeding Love” not only has climbed to a top spot in my heart, it’s made it all the way to No. 3 on iTunes (as of today) – and I bet it’s not done climbing.

Earlier this week, she had a chat with Miami’s Y-100.7 FM’s morning show, and they played her “I Will Be,” a total torch song that makes me weak in the knees.

Lewis’ debut, Sprit, hits shelves on April 8.

Photo: PhotoBucket.com.

Old People Are Fun

Opening in limited release on April 9, Young@Heart follows a New England senior citizen chorus that delights audiences worldwide with their covers of everyone form James Brown to Coldplay to the Ramones.

The documentary was a hit at the Los Angeles Film Festival.

And how could it not. As one of Young@Heart‘s subjects puts it, “A lot of life. That’s what we have – a lot of life.”

Photo: Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Simply Irresistible, Pt. 27

Yeah, I have a Madonna problem. Jealous?

At long last, the Queen of Pop’s hot new video, for “4 Minutes,” which features Justin Timberlake, will debut later this week.

DrownedMadonna.com has posted an exclusive set of screen caps that are just gorgeous.

I love it when M does effortless. Her hair looks airy and bouncy and fun.

I’m going to watch the video before it debuts, but I already know this look she’s rocking is one of my favorites, even rivaling the one she rocked in the video for “Beautiful Stranger.”

Photo: DrownedMadonna.com.

Update 1: Do you know who else has a Madonna problem? Jack Johnson, Regina Spektor, and Sonic Youth, among others. Click here to listen to their covers of some of M’s classics.

Update 2: You can preview the “4 Minutes” video here. You know you want to.

Two Inevitable Things

Opening in limited release on April 4, Sex and Death 101 stars Simon Baker, Winona Ryder, Julie Bowen (TV’s Ed), Dash Mihok, and Leslie Bibb.

The film, which reunites Ryder with Heathers writer Daniel Waters, tells the story of one man…one list…and 101 women.

Roderick Blank (Baker) is a successful executive and ladies man, who has finally found “the one,” and is getting married in a little over a week.

His life, however, is turned upside down when he receives a strange e-mail detailing the names of everyone with whom he’s had sex – and with whom he ever will have sex.

As you may have guessed, the list, which doesn’t end with fiancée’s name, throws Roderick for a loop.

His situation goes from bad to worse when he meets a mysterious femme fatale who’s a bit of an urban legend…because she targets men guilty of sex crimes against women. Fun.

I’m just glad to see Ryder back on the big screen. Are you?

Photo: Overture Films.