Please enable javascript to view this site.

Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image Image

The Latest in ShowBiz News

Mack Chico

By

2008/12/03 at 12:00am

Penelope Cruz – Oscar winner this year?

12.3.2008 | By |

Penelope Cruz - Oscar winner this year?

Penelope Cruz, Mickey Rourke, and Kate Winslet are some of the names being talked about for the Oscars.

“To me, she’s the best actress around right now,” said Dennis Hopper, Penelope’s co-star in Elegy, at the 18th annual Gotham Independent Film Awards in New York.

“She gives good performances this year – one in Woody Allen’s film Vicky Cristina Barcelona and one in Isabel Coixet’s Elegy – and they’re two of the best performances I’ve seen in years.”

Scott Franklin, producer of The Wrestler, revealed he has high hopes for his leading man Mickey.

“I think he’s being considered for all these accolades because he really brought a lot of honesty to it,” he said.

“I think he really dove into the material. He had a tremendous and honest working relationship with Darren (Aronofsky, director) – they trusted each other and that allowed Mickey to be free, and to really be himself and to go to places he needed to go to be Randy ‘Ram’ Robinson. He did a really great job. I hope he’s as proud of his own performance.”

Lena Olin had only compliments for Kate’s acting, whom she co-starred with in The Reader. There is buzz surrounding the British starlet for Revolutionary Road.

“She’s just so down-to-earth and so real. She’s an amazing woman. She’s very open, she seems to have good contact with her emotions, I think she’s worked very hard. She deserves it.”

Alex Florez

By

2008/12/02 at 12:00am

The X Files: I Want to Believe

12.2.2008 | By |

Rating: 2.5

Rated: PG-13 for violent and disturbing content and thematic material.
Release Date: 2008-07-25
Starring: Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA, Canada
Official Website: http://xfiles.com/

 Go to our film page

Alex Florez

By

2008/12/02 at 12:00am

Step Brothers

12.2.2008 | By |

Rating: 2.0

Rated: R for crude and sexual content, and pervasive language.
Release Date: 2008-07-25
Starring: Will Ferrell, Adam McKay
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.sonypictures.com/movies/stepbrothers/index.html

 Go to our film page

Alex Florez

By

2008/12/02 at 12:00am

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian

12.2.2008 | By |

Rating: 3.0

Rated: PG for epic battle action and violence.
Release Date: 2008-05-16
Starring: Andrew Adamson, Christopher Markus
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:UK, USA
Official Website: http://www.disney.es/FilmesDisney/narnia/

 Go to our film page

Mack Chico

By

2008/12/02 at 12:00am

Wanted

12.2.2008 | By |

Rating: 3.5

Rated: R for strong violence including some torture, and for language throughout.
Release Date: 2008-06-27
Starring: Michael Brandt, Dean Georgaris
Director(s):
Distributor:
Film Genre:
Country:USA
Official Website: http://www.wantedmovie.com/

 Go to our film page

Wanted provides the jolt of adrenaline one expects from solid summer entertainment. It exists solely to keep the heart pounding as it shifts from one gear to the next, decelerating only when exposition demands a reduction in pace. The movie marries the superhero origin film with the revenge thriller, blending them with hints of the frenzied intensity embodied by 300 and the visual orchestrations of The Matrix. The storyline, while not Pulitzer material, is strong enough to keep the average viewer involved. But this is one of those experiences where the brain is not the primary organ engaged by what flashes on the screen in the darkness.

The backstory of Wanted is of a young man who finds out his long lost father is an assassin. And when his father is murdered, the son is recruited into his father’s old organization and trained by a man named Sloan to follow in his dad’s footsteps.

 

Director Timur Bekmambetov showed in Night Watch that he knows how to do some arresting stuff with his cameras. He’s the everyman who discovers he’s more than he thought he was. He’s Peter Parker with an attitude. And, face it, who wants Mary Jane Watson when you can have Fox?

Angelina Jolie has always oozed sex appeal, but she’s never been able to match badass with dominatrix quite like this. Jolie doesn’t have any qualms about showing off her body, nor should she, considering how well sculpted it is. James McAvoy‘s American accent is a little flawed, but his transformation from dweeb to assassin is believable. Morgan Freeman adds a touch of class to things (much as he does with nearly every movie he’s in). There’s something perversely delicious, however, about getting to hear Easy Reader say two of George Carlin’s seven words that can’t be spoken on television.

 

The film’s sense of style is going to capture the praise of some who might normally not applaud a summer movie fueled by adrenaline and testosterone. But Wanted manages to deliver what action fans crave while still maintaining a veneer of artfulness. There are times when the film is flat-out silly (such as the spinning car assassination), but that’s part of the movie’s charm. At its worst, Wanted is never boring. At its best, it can be damn close to intoxicating. One word, written without apology, describes it best: fun.

Jack Rico

By

2008/12/02 at 12:00am

Early look at ‘Agora’ from Alejandro Amenabar

12.2.2008 | By |

Early look at 'Agora' from Alejandro Amenabar

New images from Agora, Alejandro Amenabar’s follow up to The Sea Inside, have shown up online as Fotogramas.es has a pair of images of Rachel Weisz as the astronomer Hypati.

Amenbar directed The Sea Inside, which won the Best Foreign Film Oscar, as well as Nicole Kidman ghost story The Others. Agora, like those other two is co-written by Amenabar, and is set in Roman Egypt in the fourth century telling the story of the legendarye Nastronomer Hypatia (Weisz), trapped in the legendary Library of Alexandria, and her fight to save the old world’s wisdom from the religious riots sweeping the streets of Alexandria. Her slave Davus (Max Minghella) wrestles with his yearning for freedom and his professed love for his mistress.

 

 

New images from Agora, Alejandro Amenabar’s follow up to The Sea Inside, have shown up online as Fotogramas.es has a pair of images of Rachel Weisz as the astronomer Hypatia and AirPhoto have eight aerial shots of the set.

Jack Rico

By

2008/12/02 at 12:00am

Shia LaBeouf has a new project – ‘The Associate’

12.2.2008 | By |

Shia LaBeouf has a new project - 'The Associate'

Paramount Pictures has set Shia LaBeouf to play the title role in the bigscreen version of John Grisham‘s upcoming legal thriller The Associate,” which the studio has just acquired rights to.

Lorenzo di Bonaventura is producing.

LaBeouf will play a student who’s about to graduate from Yale Law School when he’s manipulated into accepting a job at a prestige law firm and given privileged information about a multibillion-dollar lawsuit.

The novel, Grisham’s first legal thriller since 2005’s “The Broker,” will be published in January by Random House.

Grisham’s longtime rep, David Gernert, shopped the book by giving it to four producers. While some felt that lessened the book’s chances to find a suitor in a tight marketplace, the strategy worked.

Par-based Di Bonaventura, who as an exec worked on the Grisham films “A Time to Kill” and “The Client,” received the book in the Middle East, where he and LaBeouf were shooting “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.” There, they agreed to do it together.

Deal gives Paramount another LaBeouf vehicle to follow the “Transformers” films, on which the studio partners with DreamWorks. He last starred for the studio in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

Mack Chico

By

2008/12/01 at 12:00am

"Slumdog" and "Hunger" sweep at the BIFA

12.1.2008 | By |

"Slumdog" and "Hunger" sweep at the BIFA

You could be seeing these two films at the upcoming Oscar awards in 2009.

Director Danny Boyle’s Slumdog Millionaire,” about a poor Indian boy who gets a shot at winning millions in a television game show, swept the British Independent Film Awards on Sunday with three prizes.

“Hunger,” artist Steve McQueen‘s widely acclaimed directorial debut, also picked up three awards, followed by Mike Leigh‘s uncharacteristically upbeat “Happy-Go-Lucky,” which took both the best supporting actor and actress prizes.

Slumdog Millionaire won the best British independent film, best director and most promising newcomer categories, the latter going to young actor Dev Patel who played the lead role of Jamal.

The movie has already won rave reviews at film festivals and generated early Oscars buzz.

Also with three awards was Hunger, a hard-hitting film about the final days of IRA prisoner and hunger striker Bobby Sands in 1981.

Sands was played by Michael Fassbender, who won the best actor category, while McQueen was awarded the Douglas Hickox prize for best debut director and cinematographer Sean Bobbitt was honoured for best technical achievement.

Best actress went to Vera Farmiga in “The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas,” and the best screenplay award was won by Martin McDonagh for “In Bruges.”

Alexis Zegerman was named best supporting actress for Happy-Go-Lucky, and Eddie Marsan won the best supporting actor prize for the same film.

The Escapist” won the best achievement in production award, “Man on Wire” won best documentary, “Soft” won best British short film, and best foreign film went to “Waltz With Bashir,” Ari Folman’s haunting Middle East war animation.

Actor David Thewlis was honoured with the Richard Harris award for outstanding contribution to British film, and Michael Sheen won the Variety award.

Mack Chico

By

2008/12/01 at 12:00am

‘Four Christmas’ merries in a #1 gift at the box office

12.1.2008 | By |

'Four Christmas' merries in a #1 gift at the box office

Thanksgiving weekend movie crowds gobbled up the Reese Witherspoon-Vince Vaughn holiday comedy “Four Christmases,” which premiered at No. 1 with $31.7 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The film raised its total to $46.7 million since opening Wednesday.

In terms of revenue, it was Hollywood’s second-biggest Thanksgiving period ever. The top 12 movies took in $223.7 million from Wednesday to Sunday, trailing only the $232.2 million haul over 2000.

“Twilight,” which had a huge No. 1 opening the previous weekend, took a steep 62 percent decline from its $69.6 million premiere.

Based on Sunday’s estimates, Disney’s animated “Bolt” had a slight lead on second place with $26.6 million for the weekend, to $26.4 million for “Twilight.”

In San Francisco, Focus Features’ film “Milk,” directed by Gus Van Sant and starring Sean Penn as slain Supervisor Harvey Milk, set a box-office record at the Castro Theatre. From Wednesday through Friday, the single-screen theater grossed $109,440 on “Milk,” breaking the previous three-day record of $50,584 set in May by “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” according to film promoters Terry Hines and Associates.

The film opened nationally on 36 screens, two of which, the Sundance Kabuki and the Embarcadero, didn’t begin showing the film until Friday. “Milk” opened at No. 10 nationwide with $1.4 million in just 36 theaters. The film had a strong average of $38,375 a cinema, compared with $9,571 in 3,310 theaters for “Four Christmases.”

The weekend’s other new wide release, “Australia,” opened at No. 5 with $14.8 million for the weekend and $20 million since premiering Wednesday.

Jack Rico

By

2008/11/27 at 12:00am

Official snapshot of ‘Nine’ with Penelope Cruz

11.27.2008 | By |

Official snapshot of 'Nine' with Penelope Cruz

The film version is based on the Tony Award winning musical, “Nine,” directed by Academy Award nominated director Rob Marshall (“Memoirs of a Geisha,” “Chicago”).

Heading the stellar cast are Academy Award winners Daniel Day-Lewis (“There Will Be Blood,” “My Left Foot”), Nicole Kidman (“The Hours”), Marion Cotillard (“La Vie en Rose”), Judi Dench (“Shakespeare in Love”), and Sophia Loren (“Two Women”); Academy Award nominee Penelope Cruz (“Volver”) and Kate Hudson (“Almost Famous”); and Grammy Award winner Stacy “Fergie” Ferguson. The international cast also includes Ricky Tognazzi, Giuseppe Cederna, Valerio Mastandrea, and Martina Stella.
“Nine” tells the story of world famous film director Guido Contini, who faces a personal and professional crisis as he struggles to prepare his latest picture, while balancing the numerous women in his life — his wife, his mistress, his movie star muse, his costume designer, a fashion journalist, a whore from his childhood, and his mother.
The film is being shot in England at Shepperton Studios, and in Italy on location and at Cinecitta Studios in Rome.

The Weinstein Company released the first official photograph of the film 'NINE' starring Penelope Cruz and many other notable of the stage and screen.

 

 

Select a Page