Latino movie news, reviews, trailers, and festival coverage

Penelope Cruz wins the Oscar!

Penelope Cruz won the first Academy Award of the night Sunday, claiming the supporting-actress honor as a tempestuous artist in Woody Allen’s Spanish romance “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.”

The win capped a big weekend for Cruz, fresh off her win Saturday for the same prize at the Spirit Awards honoring independent film. “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” features Cruz as an unstable Spaniard in a steamy three-way affair with her ex-husband and an American woman.

“Has anybody ever fainted here? Because I might be the first one,” Cruz said, who went on with warm thanks to Allen. “Thank you, Woody, for trusting me with this beautiful character. Thank you for having written all these years some of the greatest characters for women.”

It’s the fifth time an Allen film has earned a performer a supporting-acting honor. Cruz joins past Allen collaborators Dianne Wiest, a dual Oscar winner for “Hannah and Her Sisters” and “Bullets Over Broadway”; Michael Caine for “Hannah and Her Sisters”; and Mira Sorvino for “Mighty Aphrodite.”

The award was presented by five past supporting-actress winners, including last year’s, Tilda Swinton, plus Eva Marie Saint, Anjelica Huston, Whoopi Goldberg and Goldie Hawn.

New pictures from ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’!

I just got a hold of some new exclusive pics from ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’. These 4 pics reveal Sabretooth fighting one on one with Wolverine, Logan as a child mourning the death of a loved one, a shot of Gambit posing and Sabretooth running away or at something.

The film is being released May 1st and is including a plethora of new and established characters from Marvel’s X-Men comic books.

In case you ‘re not familiar with the film’s story line, Wolverine lives a mutant life, seeks revenge against Victor Creed (who will later become Sabertooth) for the death of his girlfriend, and ultimately ends up going through the mutant Weapon X program.

Below, enjoy the pics!

12 never before seen images from ‘Watchmen’!

We just got our hands on 12 images from the new ‘Watchmen Portrait’ book that was released a week ago. The movie’s official photographer, Clay Enos took these black-and-white portraits of the individuals working on the production. From the lead heroes to supporting characters, extras in the crowd and the crew who put the film together.

We bought the book and it makes for a pretty good collector’s item and film memorabilia. From what we hear, Enos, combined the aesthetic gravitas of Richard Avedon’s In The American West series with the unsung heroics of Michael Disfarmer’s work, to subtly pair the images across double page spreads like Rorschach ink blots and providing a unique look into the world of Watchmen.

The movie ‘Watchmen’ will be in theaters and IMAX 03.06.09, and just in case you want to check out Clay’s website click here: www.clayenos.com.

The pics are below. Enjoy them and check out our Watchmen film page which has SO MUCH MORE images on ‘Watchmen’.

Friday the 13th makes a killing at the B.O!

Gory “Friday the 13th” carved its way to the top of the holiday box office, earning a record $42 million on its opening weekend.

The remake of the 1980 horror flick set an all-time high for scary movies, edging out 2004’s “The Grudge,” which raked in $39 million during its debut weekend.

The machete-madness movie features hockey-masked zombie Jason, a drowned summer camper who takes revenge on a new generation of frisky teen counselors.

Even with Valentine’s Day falling on Saturday, “Friday” easily routed the chick flick “He’s Just Not That Into You,” which fell to second place with a take of $19.6 million.

The thriller “Taken” fell to third, with $19.3 million in ticket sales.

Among other new movies, the comedy “Confessions of a Shopaholic” landed in fourth place with sales of $15.4 million, while “The International” pulled in $10 million to finish seventh.

Hollywood was cheering what looks like the best Presidents’ Day weekend ever at the box office. The total gross of all movies was about $190 million, which trumps the previous benchmark of $157 million set in 2007.

‘Button,’ ‘Knight’ win at the ADG awards

Production designers on “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,” “The Dark Knight” and “Slumdog Millionaire” drew honors in various feature-film categories of the Art Directors Guild Awards on Saturday.

The ADG held its annual awards gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, presenting awards in film, television and commercial categories.
“Button” was selected for best production design in a period film, “Knight” for a fantasy pic and “Slumdog” for a contemporary movie.

George Lucas received an honorary award for outstanding contributions to cinematic imagery, and Paul Sylbert (“The Prince of Tides”) was honored with lifetime-achievement laurels. Bryan Cranston, star of the AMC television series “Breaking Bad,” hosted the awards.

Feature Film

Period film

“The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”
Production designer: Donald Graham Burt

Fantasy film

“The Dark Knight”
Production designer:    Nathan Crowley

Contemporary film

“Slumdog Millionaire”
Production designer:    Mark Digby

Television

Single-camera TV series

“Mad Men”
Episode 211: “The Jet Set”
Production designer:    Dan Bishop

Multicamera TV series

“Little Britain U.S.A.”
Episode 4
Production designers: Greg Grande and Michael Wylie

TV movie or miniseries

“John Adams”
Production designer:    Gemma Jackson

Episode of a half-hour single-camera TV series

“Weeds”
Episode 4006: “Excellent Treasures”
Production designer: Joseph P. Lucky

Awards show, variety, music or nonfiction program

80th Annual Academy Awards
Production designer: Roy Christopher

Commercials

Farmers Insurance
“Drowned Circus”
Production designer: Chris Gorak

Victoria’s Secret
“Holiday”
Production designer: Jeffrey Beecroft

There’s a ‘Chipmunk’ sequel??

Alvin, Simon, Theodore and … Chuck?

Zachary Levi, star of the NBC action comedy series “Chuck,” has been cast opposite the computer-generated singing rodents of “Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel.”

Betty Thomas is directing the follow-up to Fox 2000 and Regency’s 2007 hit “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” which grossed $217 million in North America. Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and Janice Karman are producing, Karen Rosenfelt is executive producing, and Erin Siminoff is overseeing for Fox 2000.

Levi will play the cousin of Jason Lee’s character and gets tangled up with the tiny animated threesome. Justin Long, Matthew Gray Gubler and Jesse McCartney again will provide the chipmunks’ voices.

Also new to the franchise will be the Chipmunks’ rivals, the Chipettes — Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor — who were introduced in the 1980s animated TV series.

Levi, repped by Endeavor and Hyler Management, also has appeared in “Big Momma’s House 2” and “Shades of Ray.”

Brolin, Hopkins to join new Woody Allen pic

Woody Allen has set Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins to star in the film he wrote and will shoot in London this summer.

Brolin and Hopkins are the first in an ensemble cast. As usual, Allen is keeping title and plot under wraps.

The film will be financed by Spain-based Mediapro, which provided coin for “Vicky Cristina Barcelona.” Letty Aronson and Steve Tenenbaum are producing.

There is no domestic distributor yet on Allen’s upcoming film. He made a recent deal with Sony Pictures Classics for U.S. distribution on “Whatever Works,” a comedy that will likely be distributed this summer.

Brolin, Oscar-nominated for “Milk,” is next booked to star in the title role in “Jonah Hex,” a live-action adaptation of the DC Comics series for Warner Bros. He previously worked with Allen on 2004’s “Melinda and Melinda.”

Hopkins recently completed “The Wolf Man” for Universal.