Dakota Fanning PLAYS EVIL!

Dakota Fanning is sinking her teeth into a juicy new role: She’s the latest ’tween to jump on the “Twilight” bandwagon. The 14-year-old is in talks to play a pint-size vampire in “New Moon,” the second installment of the hit fantasy series, as the angelic-faced vampire Jane. Bet she took the role only to be closer to Robert Pattinson!
-NYDAILYNEWS.COM

Kiddies, this role is no joke, it's evil as hell and I can't wait for Dakota to crush skulls and lick blood offa breasts, wait did that happen in the Mormon's book? I guess it was just violence...

I can handle the truth, can you? Jack endorses Hill

No, we're not past this but THANKS for mentioning it!

But after Jolie was cast, some black actors were shocked that the white actress would play Pearl, who is of Afro-Cuban and Dutch descent. Jolie tells Newsweek, "I know that people are frustrated at the lack of great roles [for people of color], but I think they've picked the wrong example here."

Adds Pearl: "This is not about skin color. I wanted her to play me because I trust her. Aren't we past this?" - People.com

Personally, I understand and GET it...but thank goodness AJ is aware (as usual) how things can be perceived! There's a bunch of great biracial actors out there!

Natalie Portman promoting Goya's Ghost and talking intelligently as usual

Exploring the girl/woman/woman/girl complex this former sultry child star still struggles with.

Beautiful Girls is an extraordinarily tender film about inappropriate and safely unstated love. It's so sad that a movie like that can screw you up, I say. "Absolutely ..." she says. Silence. "Well at least you were older by then - almost legal," I say, trying to fill in the void. "I was 13 in that film, pretty far from legal! But it definitely made me shy away from that kind of role. And there's a surprising preponderance of that kind of role for young girls. Sort of being fantasy objects for men, and especially this idealised purity combined with the fertility of youth, and all this in one." Blimey, you really have thought this through haven't you. "I guess ... so I definitely shied away from it."

As she became older, did it annoy her that she had been cast in such roles? "I don't know about annoy, but it was definitely interesting to think about - why men write the female characters they do. Just like the way they write the male character. How much is wish-fulfilment fantasy, and why. Yep, interesting." - Guardian UK

Very cool that she knows what she's talking about, makes sense since she lived the lie of that fantasy.

Simon Pegg of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead talks Star Wars

"I stopped collecting Star Wars toys until the amazing Master Replicas lightsabers appeared," Pegg adds. "I bought one at a collector's convention and couldn't quite believe how cool it was. I kept thinking if these had been around in the '70s, it would have been almost too exciting to bear -- the sound, the sequential ignition, the authentic detail. When I was seven, I had a plastic tube taped to a torch [flashlight] and I was happy. I'm 37 now and I have six Master Replicas lightsabers. My wife has caught me swinging them without a hint of irony, at least twice." - Read More of this excellent interview

Oliver Stone Anti-War Commercial Coming Soon

The Oscar-winning director and Vietnam veteran will direct a 30-second spot that will air in about three weeks on national TV. It will feature a U.S. veteran of the Iraq war or the family of a veteran discussing the war's impact.

"They're giving it from their personal experience, either being on the ground or being at home waiting for their mother, father, husband to come home," MoveOn.org spokesman Alex Howe said Friday.

Stone, 60, is donating his services, Howe said. - Yahoo

Since he's the best living war filmmaker this should be quite QUITE cool! Heaven and Earth is my favorite "war is not as beautiful as life" movies. The tag line? Lasting victories are won in the heart

Second Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants Film

Alcon and Warner Bros. have hired director Sanaa Hamri to helm a sequel to 2005's The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, reports Variety. The original core ensemble -- America Ferrera, Amber Tamblyn, Alexis Bledel and Blake Lively -- are all in talks to reprise.

The plan is to begin production June 3, starting in Greece, then moving to New York and Connecticut. The challenge on the sequel has been squaring the availability of the actresses because of TV series commitments, but the hope is that all the actresses return.

Written by "Pants" co-writer Elizabeth Chandler, the sequel uses as its foundation "Forever in Blue," the fourth installment of the "Pants" novel series by Ann Brashares. Bits of the second and third books will also be used. - Coming Soon

Grindhouse suffers?

How can it be? Let's hope for future box office results as word of mouth spreads...suppose I should go see it then huh? ;-)

Heading into the weekend, the media focused its attention on Dimension Films' "Grindhouse," in which Rodriguez and Tarantino join forces to replicate a low-rent double-feature from the '70s. But the homage-within-an-homage -- Rodriguez contributed the zombie flick "Planet Terror" while Tarantino whipped up a tale of liberated chicks who cross paths with a murderous stunt driver in "Death Proof" -- failed to deliver on expectations for the Weinstein Co., opening at No. 4.

While its audience, heavily weighted in favor of over-25 males, awarded the exercise a favorable B-plus rating in exit polling, the movie's total box office amounted to a disappointing $11.60 million. - Source

OMG! Bratz Movie!

What's the plot on that?

Giovanni Ribisi = Einstein

Giovanni Ribisi = Einstein

A non stop rain of ideas, millions of pieces
organized into a tangibly stronger online brand

"I don't know if I should say, but I will, finally, talk about it," Ribisi said. "Einstein. I'm going to be doing Albert Einstein, with Liliana Cavani, who did the Charlotte Rampling film from the 70s, called The Night Porter. It's great and the script is really great, and I'm really excited about it." Ribisi said the film will begin shooting "in July, I think, and there's another movie called The Stanford Prison Experiment after that." The Einstein biopic will be shot in Italy and in Barcelona and "at Princeton, of course," Ribisi said.

"It's a movie that focuses on his relationship with his first wife, Mileva Maric, and I guess it's from the inception of that relationship to the end of his life," Ribisi said, adding that the role of Mileva had not been cast yet. "It's still sort of at the incipient stage," he noted. When a reporter asked, jokingly, if Ribisi's Einstein would be played as "twisted," Ribisi joked back "Yeah, he's gonna be a weirdo, dude. Einstein The Weirdo. I suggested that, and they were like, 'no, just Einstein.'" - Source

The Night Porter is one of the sickest sweetest films ever made, anybody who thinks they love film should check it out. It's just beyond...

Jason Lee Joins The Chipmunks

Jason Lee cast as Chipmunks ''daddy''
My Name is Earl star Jason Lee will star as David Seville in Fox's upcoming movie Alvin and the Chipmunks. In the 1950s cartoon series, David played a sort of father figure to the three chipmunks (Alvin, Simon, and Theodore), whose constant shenanigans as part of a singing group constantly tested his patience. The movie script was written by Jon Vitti and will be directed by Tim Hill, who also co-wrote and directed Fox's Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties and directed Disney's Max Keeble's Big Move and Sony's Muppets From Space. Hill also created some 20 different shows for Nickelodeon and was head writer on SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie. Production on Chipmunks is scheduled to begin March 28, and the movie has a projected Dec. 14 release date. - EW

OH MY GOD! He's Perfect! But wait, will the Chipmunks be live action? I'm not sure how I feel about that. Kinda feels a touch disturbed.

ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS THEME SONG!

Congrats Forest, CONGRATS

YES! A favorite actor AND director, Forest Whitaker won an Oscar last night!

HELL YES!

My grandma said: I've never seen so many people of color at the Oscars my ENTIRE LIFE!

She turns 74 tomorrow, and is happy to have a birthday in this better world of today!

One of my favorite moments: being 14 and pissed at the world, got dragged to LA's African Market with my Gram and ran into Forest there. Gram cajoled him into taking a picture, even though he hates them...then I lost the camera.


(Bi the way, the scottish dude James McAvoy in The Last King of Scotland is super hot and it's also got Gillian Anderson of X-Files looking quite tasty!)


Image from French one sheet for Ghost Dog, Way of the Samurai (Best Forest film ever!)

Chewbacca, Prisoner.

LAPD officers arrested "Star Wars" street performer Frederick Evan Young, 44, of Los Angeles in his furry brown wookiee costume Thursday on a charge of misdemeanor battery for allegedly head-butting a tour guide who complained about Young's treatment of two visitors from Japan.

The incident — witnessed by Superman and other impersonators — is the latest clash outside the landmark cinema between visitors and performers dressed as movie and cartoon characters. They collect tips from tourists who pose for pictures and watch them perform in front of the theater, where generations of stars have placed their footprints in concrete.

A police source said that a Superman performer witnessed the altercation and was interviewed by police. Other street performers said that before police arrived Superman called producers from ABC's "Jimmy Kimmel Show," which is taped across the boulevard from the theater, and a cameraman videotaped Young being led off by officers.

(thanks to essentialsaltes)

Seriously tho, the street performers have been out of control for awhile now. Sure, I'm also a bit frightened by the number of "fondle me,baby" elmos but still...

$200 Mill James Cameron flick, HELL YES

Set for release in 2009, Avatar is Cameron's first feature since the Oscar-winning Titanic.

Using a mix of live action and animation, it will be filmed in 3D for release in a new digital 3D format.

Some scenes will be shot in Los Angeles.

Written by Cameron, the film is set 150 years in the future.

It tells the story of a wounded former marine who is "thrust unwillingly into an effort to settle and exploit an exotic planet rich in biodiversity, who eventually crosses over to lead the indigenous race in a battle for survival".

Cameron came up with the idea more than 10 years ago but has been waiting for the technology to create his vision.

He wanted a "new face" to play lead character Jake Sully and held auditions throughout the world before deciding on Worthington, who has had parts in Somersault and Dirty Deeds.

Zoe Saldana, who starred in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, will play Sully's extra-terrestrial love interest.

Cameron, a self-confessed fan of science fiction and action genres, conceived the film as a potential franchise with future instalments.

He described it as both "epic" and his "dream project".

"We're creating an entire world, a complete ecosystem of phantasmagorical plants and creatures, and a native people with a rich culture and language."

Animator and Japanese internment vet passes

IWAO Takamoto, the animator who created the cartoon dogs Scooby-Doo and Muttley and directed the classic film Charlotte's Web has died. He was 81.

Mr Takamoto, who began learning his craft in an American internment camp during the Second World War, died of heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre in Los Angles on Monday, Gary Miereanu, a spokesman for Warner Bros Animation, said yesterday.

In a career spanning more than six decades, Mr Takamoto helped to design some of the biggest animated films and television shows, including Cinderella, Peter Pan, 101 Dalmatians, Lady and the Tramp and The Flintstones.

Bryan Singer Jumps Superman

(click for larger images)

FROM ONTD via DREAMCAPS

Depp as Freddie Mercury: Confirmed talks!

Because you know you would
Originally uploaded by crush with eyeliner.

He is a keen guitar player whose admiration for the Rolling Stones stretched to modelling his character, the pirate Jack Sparrow, on the mannerisms of Keith Richards.

Now the Pirates of the Caribbean star, Johnny Depp, is being lined up to play a rock star for real in a biopic of the late Queen frontman, Freddie Mercury.

Robert de Niro's company, Tribeca Productions, is said to be behind the project, which Brian May, the Queen guitarist, confirmed was in development. "Discussions are at an early stage," he said on his website.

May described Depp as "fantastic". "He would be a worthy counterpart for Freddie on screen. I don't think I can say any more right now," he added...- Independent UK

Sounds like they need one hell of a script, maybe I should get on that...hmm.

MY 2nd FAVORITE QUEEN SONG...THE FIRST BEING TSMGO

SPIKE LEE DOES THE RIOT

Now comes word that Lee will make the the violent race-based eruption in Los Angles (following the 1992 "not guilty" verdicts of four white officers who were videotaped beating motorist Rodney King) the subject of his next film.

According to 'Variety,' 'L.A. Riots' will be produced by Brian Grazer’s Imagine Entertainment under Universal Pictures and John Ridley ('Three Kings') is attached as the project's scriptwriter.

"This isn't about some cavalcade of stars, but rather a truthful and realistic examination of what happened, what the ramifications were and where we are now, in hopes that something like this doesn't happen again," Lee told the industry trade magazine.

The filmmaker is also reportedly developing a sequel for 'Inside Man,' which is his highest grossing film, to date starring Denzel Washington, Jody Foster and Clive Owen.
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LA RIOTS ON YOUTUBE

David Lynch's New Movie Weirder Than The Last As Was Expected

MOVIE REVIEW | INLAND EMPIRE
The Trippy Dream Factory of David Lynch
By MANOHLA DARGIS

There are, in the movies, few places creepier to spend time than in David Lynch’s head. It is a head where the wild things grow, twisting and spreading like vines, like fingers, and taking us in their captive embrace. Over the last three decades these wild things have laid siege to us even as they have mutated: the deformed baby of “Eraserhead” evolving into the anguished distortions of “The Elephant Man,” the Reagan-era surrealism of “Blue Velvet,” the serial home invasion in “Twin Peaks” and the meta-cinematic masterpiece “Mulholland Drive,” a dispatch from that smog-choked boulevard of broken dreams called Hollywood.

Mr. Lynch revisits that bewitched boulevard in the extraordinary, savagely uncompromised “Inland Empire,” his first feature in five years, his first shot in video and one of the few films I’ve seen this year that deserves to be called art. Dark as pitch, as noir, as hate, by turns beautiful and ugly, funny and horrifying, the film is also as cracked as Mad magazine, though generally more difficult to parse. I’m still trying to figure out what the giant talking rabbits — which seem to be living in Ralph Kramden’s apartment, as redesigned by Edward Hopper — have to do with the weepy Polish woman who may be a whore or merely lost or, because this is a David Lynch film (after all), probably both.
Read the whole thing...

Johnny Depp is Dali?

One day it will have to be officially admitted that what we have christened reality is an even greater illusion than the world of dreams. - Salvador Dali

RICHARD AND Robert Dupont, of the old Andy Warhol daze in N.Y.C., remembered enough about those heady times to earn associate producer credits on the upcoming "Factory Girl" movie about Edie Sedgwick. Now the Dupont brothers are writing their own screenplay about that fabled artist of the surreal, the late Salvador Dali. They hope to produce through their own Double-Take Productions, and want Johnny Depp as the painter of all things odd. If you've seen Johnny in his flamboyant "Pirates" outings, you know Dali would be a walk in the park . - Liz Smith of the NY Post

My favorite Dali experience, Un Chein Adalou (1929).

Directed by Luis Buenel and conceptualized by Salvidor Dali...youtube rules for having this and A trip to the moon(1902)