Sex movie to debut in London
Sex and the City: The Movie will have its world premiere in London - because of the weakness of the US dollar.
The film - based on the hit US TV show about the lives of four New York women - will be shown for the first time in Leicester Square on May 12, more than two weeks before it gets its premiere in the Big Apple.
All four stars - Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon and Kristin Davis - will be at the London event, and sources say producers feel London is financially more equipped to cope with it.
(The Age)
De Niro, Pacino get an offer they can’t refuse
"This is an event in world history," is how Hollywood producer Avi Lerner hyperbolically proclaimed the news that Robert De Niro and Al Pacino were to star in his new film.
Lerner can, perhaps, be forgiven for getting a little carried away. After all, it's not every day these two Hollywood greats appear together on screen.
Lerner is fully aware that by getting De Niro and Pacino to pair up in his latest venture "Righteous Kill," he has hit movie paydirt. "They were in two scenes in 'Heat.' In this movie, they are in the whole thing together," he tells Variety magazine.
(CNN)
Judge sentences Snipes to 3 years for tax convictions
Wesley Snipes called on famous friends to vouch for him, highlighted his clean criminal record and even wrote the government $5 million in checks - all in an effort to convince a judge that his conviction on tax charges should cost him nothing more than home detention and some public service announcements.
None of it worked. The Blade actor is doing hard time. Snipes was sentenced to three years in prison Thursday for failing to file tax returns, the maximum penalty - and a victory for prosecutors who sought to make an example of the action star.
(USA Today)
David Mamet’s Hard Lessons Learned in the Ring
Jean Renori said he made movies for the close-ups. I didn’t understand what he meant until I made a fight film. There is little more beautiful than a fighter’s face. Audrey Hepburn was the face of beauty, but if wisdom is knowledge perfected by suffering, the fighter’s is the face of wisdom.My new film, “Redbelt,” is a fight film; in it Ray Mancini — the former lightweight champion of the world — plays a movie fight director.
ESPN was doing a documentary about Ray a few months back and asked me what I like about his acting. I said: “He’s sad. All fighters are sad. ”Here are three examples I’ve remembered all my life: Takashi Shimura, Kola Kwariani and Stanislaus Zbyszko.
(New York Times)
Del Toro to direct Hobbit movies
Mexican-born filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has been named as the director of the film version of JRR Tolkien's The Hobbit and its proposed sequel.The films, planned for release in 2010 and 2011, will be prequels to the Lord of the Rings trilogy directed by New Zealand's Peter Jackson.
"Contributing to the Lord of the Rings legacy is an absolute dream come true," said del Toro, 43.Jackson will produce the films, to be made back-to-back in New Zealand.
(BBC News)
Going to the movies is still a bargain
In Berkeley circa 1971, a weekend matinee at the local movie house cost about a buck. Ten-year-old Projector, flush with his $5 weekly allowance, could catch "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory," hit the concession stand for popcorn, a Coke and Bon-Bons, and still have enough cash left over to buy the next week's essentials at the corner store: baseball cards, Hershey bars and comic books.
Like everything else, the economics of moviegoing has gotten more complicated. With baby-sitting and dinner, a recent Friday night at the multiplex cost Mr. and Mrs. Projector $73.66. (That tab, by the way, does not include the two hours of our lives spent watching "Leatherheads." Call that a write-off.) No wonder so many folks simply flop down in front of their flat screen TVs and pop in DVDs from Netflix or Blockbuster.
(LA Times)
MOVIE OPENINGS – April 25
BABY MAMA
Director: Michael McCullers
Stars: Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Sigourney Weaver
Studio: Universal Pictures
The Plot: A career-driven single woman (Fey) hires a surrogate mother (Poehler) to carry her child to term.
DEAL
Director: Gil Cates Jr.
Stars: Burt Reynolds, Bret Harrison, Maria Mason
Studio: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM)
The Plot: As an ex-gambler (Reynolds) looks to teach a hot-shot college kid (Harrison) some things about playing cards, he finds himself pulled into the world series of poker, where his protégé becomes his toughest competition.
HAROLD AND KUMAR ESCAPE FROM GUANTANAMO BAY
Director: Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg
Stars: John Cho, Kal Penn, Neil Patrick Harris
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
The Plot: Aboard their flight to Amsterdam, Harold (Cho) and Kumar (Penn) are caught trying to sneak a bong onboard, the first step in a misadventure that finds them mistaken for terrorists and sent to Guantanamo Bay.
READ REVIEWS OF 'HAROLD AND KUMAR'
DECEPTION
Director: Marcel Langenegger
Stars: Hugh Jackman, Ewan McGregor
Studio: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
The Plot: An accountant (McGregor) is introduced to a mysterious sex club by his charismatic new lawyer friend (Jackman). But in this new world, he soon becomes the prime suspect in a woman's disappearance and a multi-million dollar heist.
ROGUE
Director: Greg Mclean
Stars: Michael Vartan, Radha Mitchell, Sam Worthington
Studio: Roadshow Entertainment
The Plot: An American journalist (Vartan) on assignment in Australia is lead through the Outback by a seasoned tour guide (Mitchell), where they, along with a handful of adventure-seekers, come face-to-face with a man-eating crocodile.
THEN SHE FOUND ME
Director: Helen Hunt
Stars: Helen Hunt, Colin Firth, Bette Midler
Studio: THINKFilm
The Plot: April Epner (Hunt) is a 39-year-old schoolteacher in crisis: She and her husband are on the outs, she is becoming increasingly desperate to have a child, and her adoptive mother just passed away. Into all of this drama bursts her birth mother (Midler), who wants an instant parent-child bonding experience, as well as a potential suitor (Firth), who just happens to be the father of one of April's students.
READ REVIEWS OF 'THEN SHE FOUND ME'
Movie star Hugh Jackman reveals his dark secret
It was only a matter of time before someone exposed Hugh Jackman's dark secret.
And who could be better qualified for the job than the man himself?
In an industry dominated by overblown egos and undernourished starlets, the 39-year-old actor's widespread reputation as an unaffected and thoroughly decent bloke has always seemed just a bit too good to be true.
Smart, handsome, talented, successful and nice? Surely there must be a skeleton in the cupboard there somewhere.
Now, after almost a decade in the spotlight, Jackman has come clean in the aptly titled thriller Deception, the first film to be released by Seed Productions, the company he set up two years ago with wife Deborra-Lee Furness and old mate John Palermo.
(Daily Telegraph)
Oscar-Winner Turns Lens on Torture, Iraq
Ask Academy Award-winning director Errol Morris how he makes movies, and his answer has a disarmingly goofy, gee-whiz quality: "I like to think of myself as a conceptual vacuum cleaner, an Electrolux," he told an audience in New York City at a recent screening of his latest documentary, "Standard Operating Procedure."
"I try to make friends with people I'm talking to. Gradually, a movie emerges."
He stopped, and shrugged. "Go figure."
Go figure indeed. "Standard Operating Procedure," which opens Friday, is a damning indictment of U.S. policy in Iraq. The film's starting point is the infamous photographs taken at the Abu Ghraib prison, which shocked the world when they were released in spring 2004.
(ABC News)
Helen Hunt: Filmmaker on ‘Then She Found Me’
It's been over fifteen years since the world was first introduced to Helen Hunt's character Jamie Buchman on the long-running hit sitcom "Mad About You" and though she's won Emmys, Oscars and countless other awards for her acting, there was still another challenge to take on and that was to write and direct a feature film.
Hunt follows in her father Gordon Hunt's footsteps by directing Then She Found Me, an independent film based on the novel by Elinor Lipman that the actress optioned, adapted and shepherded for nearly a decade before making it herself.
(Coming Soon)